An Office in LA
by eavan
Summary: A forensic anthropologist, a police detective, a consulting detective, and a few bodies come together in an LA office building. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Office**

"It's on the second floor, through the first set of glass doors but not the second; the door is the first on the right." The advice had come, unasked for, from a tall and thin man standing near the call button for the elevators. I looked twice at him, unsure at first he was the one who'd spoken. His face was pale, composed, and utterly still.

"What is?" I said at last, deciding in the absence of other people nearby that he must have been giving the directions to me.

"The office you're looking for," he said, turning his face to me. His eyes distracted me from getting a look at the rest of his face as I'd meant to do. They were grey, pale grey, and seemed to be taking in everything about me at once. I shifted my weight, but kept my head up. "And you're late," he said calmly, before turning back to face the opening elevator doors.

I walked into the elevator car with him against a slight feeling I shouldn't. I couldn't help but stiffen a bit when he pressed the second floor button as well as the fourth. He let out a quiet chuckle. I huffed. Before I could think up a snappy way to tell him to shove off, my phone vibrated in the bottom of my bag. I submerged my hand into the crowded mess of my work bag and scrabbled with my fingers, wincing when I caught a nail on my key ring. There. I eyed the caller ID: work.

"Connell," I said sharply.

"Doc, I've got something." Detective DuPret's voice was loud enough in his excitement to echo in the elevator. I just had to park in the fourth basement so my charming companion could eavesdrop, I groused to myself.

"Look, DuPret, I'm in the elevator; if you could just…" I began.

"I know I told you it'd be a set of bone fragments, Doc, but the guys found another set here." I shifted my bag on my hip and felt around to make sure I'd packed gloves. I had. DuPret continued. "How much time you got?"

"What do you mean?" I asked with some dread. In the hazy reflection on the stainless steel elevator doors I could see the man next to me raise his eyebrows.

"I mean your answers are going to matter on this one." DuPret said.

"You mean you need them tonight." I translated.

"Yeah, that's about it, Doc." He paused. "Listen, I've got to get back."

"See you." I said. I waited for the call to go dead before shutting my phone and pushing it back into the recesses of my bag.

Moments later the elevator doors opened on the second floor, where a knot of police officers crowded the hallway. I shifted my bag again and stepped out of the car. As I left the man pinned his keen gaze on me again. I turned toward him. "Until later, Doctor," he said quietly, a slight smirk rising on his face. I was a bit grateful when the doors closed.

* * *

After I earned my doctorate in forensic anthropology I kicked around Italy for a while, examining the bones of medieval plague victims, Christians in pauper's graves, and the odd Roman. I can say most of my friends back home thought my life was a lot more wonderful than it was. Sure, it sounds romantic to wander the Italian countryside analyzing gravesites, but it isn't. At least, it isn't when you're spending nearly every night alone in a hotel room so similar to all the others that it takes a cup of coffee and some real mental effort to figure out what city you're in.

So it wasn't just the car accident that convinced me to come home. Sure, limping around Venice with a shattered kneecap did hurry my decision, but I was nearly there anyway. I wanted to find some use for my training outside of archaeology. I wanted what I was doing to matter.

When I think that now it's hard not to laugh. I work as a consultant in the pay of the LA County Coroner. Anytime a cop finds some human bones, they call me to figure out what they are and why they might be there. Times being what they are in LA, It's not often the more rural areas get much of my time. I've been here a year, and I could swear there are fragments of bone in every building on every street in this entire sprawling city.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I do. I've always got a puzzle to figure out, most of the people I work with are sane, and they pay me enough to live. But so help me, I'm going to give Detective DuPret what for and why not one of these days.

"Doc!" DuPret's broad form emerged from the crowd of uniformed officers and crime scene techs in the anteroom of the small office. He wiped his palms down the front of his khakis as he walked toward me. "Doc, you'll like this one," he said, grinning.

"Got enough uniforms on the scene, DuPret?" I asked snidely.

"It's a maze back there once you get past the first door," he said. "Maybe thirty private offices and a center block of cubicles. Something like that." I nodded; he took it as a sign to continue. "Here's the story. We got a call at seven because building maintenance had some gardeners in here…"

"Gardners?" I cut in.

"Yeah. For the plantings." He shook his head. "Yuppies. Anyway a gardener pulled up a tree to put it in a bigger container and found a human hand in the bottom of the pot."

"That's terrible." I winced. DuPret grinned.

"Scared the piss out of him. So we secured the place and started processing the scene. The teams have been through most of the plants now, and I think we've got two bodies. That's what I need to know, really."

"Hold on now," I held up a hand and stopped in my tracks. While we talked we'd gone through the grey and beige waiting room, past a large granite-topped reception desk, and into a high-ceilinged office space filled with two aisles of outward-facing cubicles flanked by a ring of windowed offices. The building's ventilation system hummed loudly enough to be heard over the shuffling of several crime scene teams. Piles of soil rested on sheets of black plastic at even intervals along the carpeted walkways. I let my gaze drift up to a slowly failing fluorescent light. "You've got a hand with soft tissue and bones from another body?"

"We're sending all the fresh stuff to the M.E." DuPret said, stepping in front of me to round a pile of potting soil. "I think we've got more than a body's worth of the dry stuff."

"All in the plants?" I asked, incredulous.

"All in the plants." DuPret nodded to an officer standing by a tarp, on which my coworker Bridget was placing shards of bone darkened with adhered soil.

"Hey Bridget," I said quietly, hoping not to startle her. Her head shot up, sending her purple-red ponytail flying. She raised a gloved hand and smiled.

"What's up, buttercup?" She chirped, turning back to her cleaning. Out of the corner of my eye I could see DuPret shake his head. One more reason I didn't like him. He was cocky, he was sexist, and he didn't like Bridget. I set my bag down carefully in the corner of the cubicle and dug out a pair of gloves.

"Cleaning them to pack for the lab?" I asked Bridget as I knelt next to her.

"Yeah. We're still going to have a long night, though. Look at all that!" She gestured to a stack of trays behind her. I did a mental calculation and groaned.

* * *

Two hours later I stepped out into the anteroom of the office to stretch my cramped back and call the M.E. From my unscientific eyeballing of the evidence already collected, I thought I had enough bones to constitute a victim. That is to say I'd seen too many vertebrae for a person to lose without dying. I wandered into the hallway of the second floor while the M.E.'s phone rang.

"McLynn," the M.E. said sharply, audibly fumbling with the receiver.

"Connell," I said. I wandered farther down the hallway. "I'm here at the downtown scene," I began.

"Which one, darlin'?" Dr. McLynn laughed gently. Her East Texas accent distinguished her voice from any of the others I heard at work. I laughed too, realizing how vague I'd been.

"I'm in the office building where they found the severed hand in the potted plant," I clarified.

"Oh yes," she said. I could hear her shuffling papers. "Now I don't remember asking you to give me a hand, Connell," she teased. I groaned.

"That was awful, McLynn," I scolded. "I'm calling because I think we'll need to meet up on this tomorrow once everything's out."

"I didn't even know they had you on this one, honey," she paused. I heard her moving papers for another moment. "Oh here it is. Yes. I looked at that hand just a bit ago. Pieces of the radius and ulna attached, if you'll believe it," she said.

"Was it cut?" I asked, my puzzlement showing in my tone.

"Bashed, looked like," she said. "It looked like a premortem compound break, loads of bruising, then a clean cut of the skin and tissues right around the break. You tell me, girl."  
"I couldn't say," I demurred. "I've got trays of vertebrae in there; enough for at least one body."

"Good lord help us," she said. "How's your schedule looking for lunchtime?"

"Not bad," I said, "one o'clock at Laney's?"

"You're on, Connell." I heard the light scratch of a pen, then the sound of a page being ripped from a notepad. "See you tomorrow." I snapped my phone shut and slid it into my back pocket. I walked a little farther down the hallway, now curious about the other tenants on the floor. I paused near the bank of elevators as a yawn overtook me. When I opened my eyes again after my jaw-cracking yawn, the thin man from earlier in the evening stood in front of me. I flinched, surprised.

"Alone, doctor?" His voice was loud in the hallway, though it wasn't above speaking volume. I glanced behind him as covertly as I could, suddenly worried. "What would DuPret think?" I blinked stupidly at him for a moment before I realized he was teasing me. I scowled.

"Who are you?" I put my hands on my hips. Even if I were drawn to my full height the top of my head would barely reach his chin. I looked him over for a clue to his reasons for being in the hall. He was wearing a well-tailored summer weight suit in a conservative cut. Despite the traditional tailoring he wasn't wearing a tie. The neck of his white shirt was open. His straight black hair fell near his cheekbones, and one lock pushed ahead of the others to rest against the edge of his eyebrow. As I looked at it he moved the lock back behind his hairline, but it immediately fell forward again. His build was wiry and his face thin with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose. His unusual eyes caught my attention again and I looked up at him, fighting to silence the voice in my brain that kept telling me he looked about my age and a bachelor. I've got to get my mother off my case about that.

"Have you made your determinations, doctor?" He asked, cocking his head slightly.

"About what?" I snapped.

"Perhaps about whether to be afraid of me? Whether you should scream for the police?" His face creased into a mocking grin. I wanted to slap the look off his face. I could feel my nostrils flaring.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice radiating exasperation.

"I have tried your patience enough, doctor," he said. He reached out a hand to me. Moving back from anger to confusion, I shook his hand. "I'm Oliver Karne, detective."

"Amy Connell." I said, withdrawing my hand.

"Charmed," he said. His face twisted into the mocking smile again, but it already seemed a tiny bit less grating to me. "You've been digging for bones, doctor?"

"And I need to get back to it." I turned away from him and nearly jumped out of my skin when he reached out and caught my arm.

"Pay close attention to the ficus trees; you'll find the root structures conceal fragments." I turned toward him again, blinking. I wouldn't know a ficus tree if it bit me in the ass. "The ficus trees in that office are especially mature, if the gardener is to be believed." His eyes darted up to focus down the hall. "DuPret; good to see you as always."

"Karne! How the hell did you get in here?" DuPret and a uniformed officer strode down the hall toward us. Karne discreetly dropped his hand from my arm.

"The elevator." Karne said in a flat tone. DuPret's face reddened with annoyance.

"I can't have you just walking in…" he began, his tone rising. The officer with him appeared to be having trouble containing a grin. I stared at DuPret and Karne, stymied.

"The doctor and I were just discussing gardening soils, DuPret. Commercially prepared ones, of course." Karne brought his hands together in front of him and rocked forward. "I'm sure you know the gardening team in this building switched manufacturers of potting soil and plant food weeks ago."

"What the hell are you talking about?" DuPret growled.

"Well of course you will have wondered why there were distinct layers of soil in potted plants. It's the sort of thing you'd only expect to see outdoors." Karne's piercing eyes settled on DuPret. I turned what he was saying over in my mind. Archaeologists used layers of soil to date material. Was he saying we could use layers of potting soil to date the bones? What if he was?

"Did the gardeners place the newer potting soil on top of the older layers?" I asked, loudly cutting into their staring match. Karne turned to me, the corner of his eyes crinkling.

"They did." Karne said.

"They didn't mix them at all?" This was excellent news.

"They did not." Karne turned to address me instead of DuPret, who stood with his head cocked like a confused mutt.

"So we could get a rough date the remains were added to the pots by examining the soil we found them in?" I asked.

"You could," Karne said. The evidence teams had been dumping the soil out onto plastic sheets, not paying any attention to layers. I motioned to Karne and turned back toward the office; he trailed behind. I turned and grabbed his forearm, pulling him up beside me.

"You know the difference if you see it?" I asked as we walked.

"Of course." He said, extracting his arm from my grip and keeping pace. We walked into the crime scene together, attracting stares from several techs as we went. I gathered Karne had sparred with DuPret before, but I didn't care. DuPret nearly let a vital piece of information get away, and it was sheer luck Karne was there to get it back. And so help me, I was tired of working cases with an idiot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Both of Them**

I sat at the usual window side booth at Laney's with my notes spread in an arc around the menu printed on the paper place mat. Laney herself sat across from me with her notepad poised to take my order. I cast my eyes past the list of salads once more before looking up at her.

"I can't do it, Laney; I knew this diet wouldn't work." I grinned. "I'll have the special without the meat."

"That's my girl," she said heartily, starting to shift herself off the bench seat. "You don't need a diet, anyway. You want to be another one of those skinny girls in the heels I see here every day? Besides, you're already not eating meat. I don't know how you stay alive."

"Come on now, Laney. I've got enough stored up for a few lean winters." I scoffed, giving my stomach a pat. She laughed as she turned back toward the lunch counter to hand my order to the cook. Laney's diner occupied the corner of the block where I worked. My lab was up one floor from the M.E.'s lab and down one from the ballistics offices. Most lunch hours Laney's was full of people talking about different aspects of murders. Laney took it in stride; the money might've had something to do with it. I pulled my sheaf of notes back together and reviewed my results for my meeting with McLynn.

Perhaps I should've called them my meager results. Most of what I knew about the bones came from the vertebrae and the layers of potting soil. I knew we had two bodies' worth of bones. I'd found almost no tool marks on the surfaces of any of the bones, and most of the breaks were postmortem. I'd found one atlas—vertebra that is—tangled into the root ball of one of the ficus trees. I'd found the other atlas in the older layer of soil but not as entangled in the roots. So we had two separate murders, it seemed. Well. We had two separate burial times for the bones of two bodies.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, Connell," McLynn said as she came down the aisle toward my table. She too had a file of papers and a perplexed look on her face. She set the file down and removed her suit jacket before sliding into the booth. "Oh she's got red beans and rice on today. One of us must be living right."

"I bet it's you," I said, pushing my notes to one side. Laney appeared at the head of the table and took McLynn's order. I watched people walk past the window while they chatted. Laney walked off to put in McLynn's order, and I turned back to the table. "You testified today?"

"Yes, so help me." McLynn sighed, carefully unfolding her napkin around her utensils and arranging them straight atop it. "That little DA can kiss my grits." Laney reappeared with a full cup of coffee, which she put in front of McLynn. "Thank you, honey."

"He is an irritating little man, isn't he?" I snorted. "He takes up so much time in cross."

"I know it," McLynn agreed. "He once made me so late to pick up my daughter I had to call her school. Burnt me up."

"Well, while we're on the topic of irritating men…" I began.

"What, you dating another one?" McLynn said, cutting her eyes over to me.

"No," I rolled my eyes. "I'm talking about DuPret."

"Tell me you're not dating that idiot." McLynn gave me a stern look.

"Of course not," I snorted. "He'd leave stains on the carpet."

"And he's always howling about any little thing," she said, laughing heartily.

"But really, I need to know what you think of the office case." I leaned forward over the table. "I've hit a wall on a few things."

"All right," McLynn said, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. "I've got to say, I don't know what on earth happened to the owner of this hand."

"I've hardly got anything either," I said, shoving my summary of results across the table to her. She pushed her summary toward me and we read in silence. She'd barely come up with anything more than she'd told me she had last night. She'd put the fingerprints in for analysis and sent off some DNA, but she had what I had. Not much.

"Hey McLynn?" I muttered. She looked up at me. "Did you get a sample of the soil from the hand?"

"Mmhm." She muttered, wrinkling her eyebrows. "You're thinking about the date match?"

"Yeah." I flipped a page in her file to look at her description of the trauma to the hand. "There's no exact date for the change in soil yet, but if we find one…"

"It could be vital information for the trial. I get you." She scratched a note to herself on the edge of the paper placemat and shoved it into her case file. "You're taking soil from all the bones, right?"

"Yeah," I confirmed quietly, distracted by the description of the breaks in the radius and ulna attached to the hand. "I think you're right about a crushing injury."

"Bless his heart." She said. We paused to shuffle our files out of the way when Laney came with the food. We spent the rest of the meal chatting, really, since neither of us had anything truly useful. But something was bothering me. We were both down to our last bites before I identified it and put it into words.

"McLynn, do you know a guy named Karne? He said he was a detective. He was at the scene last night." McLynn looked at me, then out the window. Her eyes lost focus for a moment as she remembered.

"What's he look like? Well. Wait, why do you ask?"

"There was a man at the scene last night; he nearly got into it with DuPret. He said his name was Karne, and that he was a detective." I said. "I think he's not police from the way DuPret was trying to run him off. He was the one who mentioned the soil first."

"You're telling me you met some strange man at a scene of a suspected homicide who gave you pertinent information? Honey, you know that's classic psychopathic…" McLynn sat forward, warming to her theme. I put up a hand.

"I know, I know. Psychopath inserts himself into the investigation of his crimes—very classic. But that's not my gut feeling." I paused, realizing I sounded like a fool. "DuPret set on him like he'd had to defend his turf before—almost like Karne was a private investigator."

"Girl, that does not preclude the possibility that he's a psychopath." McLynn pointed her fork at me. "Now you tell me why you're asking."

"Just because I have the feeling I should've been worried about him being there, but I wasn't." I ran a fingertip around the rim of my water glass. "I know that might just mean he's good."

"Look him up, will you? It'd be a stupid way to get hurt, Connell." McLynn gave me the look I'd have given anyone who'd said the same thing to me. Of course it was foolish to trust this guy on gut feelings alone. McLynn got up to head to the office a few moments later. I hung back and dialed Bridget at the office.

"Bridget, I need some information—whatever you can get—on Oliver Karne." I set to work gathering my notes while she typed in a search.

"With a 'K' maybe?" She asked. I assumed she was choosing from phonetic matches in our database. I made a noise of agreement. "Amy?" Bridget's voice changed pitch a little, but I couldn't tell what that meant.

"What'd you find?"

"He calls himself a consulting detective." She paused, and I could hear a few mouse clicks. "This guy's famous. Really famous."

"What do you mean?"

"In the files—you know, the interdepartmental notes section in the database?" I made another agreeing noise. "Every time his name comes up—and that's a lot, really a lot—it says something about how the department needs to hire him. Or detectives at a dead end should call him." Her voice trailed away and I could hear more typing.

"What sorts of cases does he work?" I asked.

"Whatever's there, it looks like." She paused. "Wow."

"What?"

"Just found a picture. He's hot." I snorted. "What? He is!"

"Where was the picture?" I laughed.

"Awards dinner. He looks like he's going to punch DuPret, though." She paused. "He's really, really hot, Amy."

"All right, all right." I laughed. "I'll be right back up." I clicked the phone shut, grinning to myself. Every forensics department needs a woman with purple hair.

* * *

I recognized Karne's lanky form from the outside of the revolving door to my office building but didn't process why he was familiar, and who he was, until I was inside. He was pacing irritably outside the rank of metal detectors. I started toward him, determined to thank him for his assistance with the potting soil.

"Doctor, at last; I began to wonder how long a lunch you could take." He covered the distance between us in a few long strides and came to a stop in front of me with a harried look on his face.

"What are you…?" I began.

"I will require your assistance," he said sharply, stretching out a long arm to take me by the elbow and turn me back toward the door.

"Karne, I'm at work," I tried, providing a little resistance to his hand pressing against my arm. His look of annoyance increased; he dipped his chin and glared into my eyes. I cast my gaze around the lobby in time to see McLynn walk toward the elevators with an amused look on her face. She waved as she walked away.

"And you will continue to work when we're speaking to the building staff. Now come." He said, moving his features back into a look of mastery and drawing closer to press his palm into my back. I refused to budge again. "Really, doctor, must we argue in the lobby?"

"Yes we must," I snapped. "And stop calling me doctor. I'm not an MD."

"You are fussy, aren't you," he said, dropping his hand from my back. I crossed my arms and glared at him. "Ms. Connell, I'd like your assistance in interviewing the building staff about the disappearance of Iliver Ramos, night janitor, shortly before the discovery of the hand."

"Why?"

"Because it's important!" He said forcefully.

"No; why me?" I said, telling myself not to yell at him. "Why aren't you calling DuPret?"

"DuPret is a fool," he said, taking my arm again. I allowed myself to be redirected to the revolving door. He dropped my arm.

"He means well," I muttered.

"Even you don't believe that." Karne concluded. "And in response to your question: I have requested your assistance because you are officially involved with this case, and because you are a young woman."

"Why does…?" I began, scowling.

"It matters, Ms. Connell, because Mrs. Ramos might find one of us less threatening than the other." His mouth lifted into a partial grin.

"Proud of yourself, aren't you?" I muttered. To my surprise he let out a short and forceful laugh. We continued down the sidewalk nearly to the end of the block, where Karne drew up short next to a low and dark European sedan. Muttering to myself about men compensating by driving fancy cars, I maneuvered my stiff knee until I could get in.

"You've broken your kneecap." Karne noted. I nodded. "You have a scar?" He asked. I nodded again. "That will complicate things." I frowned. "In that we can't walk into Mrs. Ramos' neighborhood dressed as we are, Ms. Connell."

"What do you mean?" I wondered aloud.

"If we want her trust, we can't look like police." Karne said patiently.

"Fair enough." I agreed. I looked out the side window as Karne drove, and was surprised to see the streets look familiar. "Where are we going?"

"To your home, of course, so you can change." Karne said.

"Why do you know where I live?" I couldn't keep a slightly hysterical note out of my voice.

"You're in the phone book." He said mildly. I rolled my eyes. "I was going to provide you with appropriate clothing, but your scar makes the skirt I chose impractical."

"Impractical?" I raised my eyebrows.

"Most women avoid showing large scars. The skirt might look like a disguise." He said.

"You're completely crazy." I asserted.

* * *

Mrs. Ramos was a frazzled looking woman with two children too young not to be held. When we met her she was on her own, with one infant in the crook of her arm and a toddler loosely contained at her side. She sat on a couch, where the toddler bounced continually as we talked. Mrs. Ramos' face was sunburned, but the color stopped abruptly at her neckline. Her fingernails were short and the skin of her hands cracked. Her dark eyes skipped quickly between Karne and me as we sat across from her. She hardly moved as we spoke except to save her thick braid from her toddler, who took hold of the end as he jumped.

Karne did most of the talking. They spoke in Spanish too rapid for my limited knowledge of the language to keep pace. I could extract some meaning from the conversation by comparing a few words to Italian, but I knew I'd have to rely on Karne's account. For some reason that idea didn't bother me. It always annoyed me to rely on DuPret's account—of anything.

At the close of their conversation Karne walked quickly to the car, silent and frowning. He held his silence through the afternoon traffic. At last, he parked outside a coffee shop and turned toward me with a sharp intake of breath.

"His disappearance coincides with the date I believe the hand was placed in the pot." He said.

"Yes?" I prodded.

"They are Salvadoran nationals living with forged papers. DuPret will not find a match for the fingerprints." He said, a frustrated note creeping into his voice.

"You're concerned about linking the hand to Mr. Ramos." I clarified.

"In a way that will hold up in court, yes." Karne agreed, still frowning. "It's clear enough for our purposes."

"What about DNA?" I asked. "McLynn sent tests out."

"To match with what, Connell?" Karne smirked.

"Hair, maybe?" I mused.

"Mrs. Ramos is illegal as well. She'll never let a team in to ransack her house for a sample." Karne waved a hand toward me. He turned back toward the windshield. "No, we must think of something else."  
"There wouldn't be a sample left at the office, would there?" I wondered.

"Unlikely." Karne said. He turned toward me again. "Unlikely, but possible." He started the car and turned us toward the office building.

We were part-way there when my phone rang. It was DuPret. "Doc, where the hell are you?"

"In traffic. What do you need?" I answered, gritting my teeth to stay polite.

"I've got a couple missing persons reports on secretaries from the office. I need genders on those bones." He said. I noticed Karne raising his eyebrows as he listened in.

"Can't do it, DuPret," I hedged. "I can't give you a conclusive answer with the bones I've got. You've got two females missing? Is that it?"

"Yeah, two females. Both in their mid-twenties. Medium stature. Worked for the company lawyer." DuPret continued.

"At the same time?" I asked.

"Nah. One worked there, went missing, then the other got hired. Then she went missing." I heard a sound of shuffling paper in the background. "Looks like the reports are two months apart." I looked over toward Karne. He caught my eye and nodded.

"Look, could you get me copies of those reports? I can see if there's anything about them I can use to make a link." DuPret shuffled a few more papers.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll route both to you now." He said. "You say you can't give me genders, though?"

"Not with what I've got," I said. "But I'll get back to you if I can think of something." DuPret let me know he was frustrated for a while before hanging up. I couldn't help the irritated noise I let out before hitting the end button. Out the corner of my eye I could see Karne's mouth curl into a smile.

* * *

We walked into the building that evening after the bulk of the workers had left. During the intervening time Karne had told me the potting soil change happened only two weeks ago. No wonder that hand was so fresh. He also asked me a question I berated myself for failing to ask: was the soil around the bones unusual in any way. It wasn't, in fact, but even that was important. To me, it meant that the bones had been buried already stripped of soft tissue. As they weren't charred—the obvious way to rid a skeleton of flesh—the dismemberment of those bodies must've been painstaking. It was certainly food for thought.

To my surprise the night security guard greeted Karne by name when we entered the main lobby. The woman's beaded braids clicked as she stood to shake his hand over the security desk. Karne introduced me as his coworker.

"How long are you assigned here?" The woman asked. I tried not to look confused as Karne slouched against the desk.

"I've got another two weeks, boss says," he said casually. I attempted to keep my posture natural. Would it have troubled him to tell me what was happening?

"Ought to be longer that that, with how late you work." The woman protested. She shook her head, sending off a peal of clicks from her beads. "They ought to hire you permanently."

"Tell them that, huh?" Karne said. I registered that he'd put on a vague accent—faintly northeastern. "All I know's I'm out of here. Besides, I've already been here long enough that the staff's changed on my floor."

"What do you mean?" The woman asked, her forehead wrinkling. "Staff's the same as when you got here."

"No, there used to be this guy; he came in after hours. Don't remember his name." Karne turned toward me and directed his musings at me. "You know who I mean, Connell? The guy that used to come in to vacuum."

"Yeah," I played along. "Dark hair?"

"That's the one," Karne lazily pointed toward me, then turned back to the guard. "He's been gone a while now."

"You mean Iliver?" She said at last, looking back and forth between us. "Big guy? Spoke mostly Spanish?"

"Yeah, him." Karne said casually. "What happened to that guy?"

"Took off, they think," she mused, drawing her nails through her braids. "He was illegal. They think he just left."

"Too bad about that," Karne said. "At least he picked up after that fern by my desk. Thing loses leaves all day long."

"Don't know why they've got so many plants in here." The guard mused, casting an eye disparagingly at a large planting in the lobby. "Can't even see around them with the cameras."

"Yeah?" I asked. "But they're all over."

"I know," the woman said. "They've got all these cameras in the building and half of them are blocked by leaves." She shook her head. "I don't know."

"Well," Karne said suddenly, heaving himself upright and turning toward the bank of elevators. "About time I got home."

"Making me jealous," the guard teased. She sank back into her chair as we walked to the elevators. Once the doors were closed, Karne shoved the rogue lock of hair behind his ear again. It fell back out of place instantly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: The Rings**

The lab where I spend most days is a little like being in a shopping mall, in that all the light is artificial, the exits are concealed, and there's no way to tell what time of day it is. I can say with a little certainty that I spent the morning after my adventure with Karne reviewing the missing persons reports for any clues I could apply to the vertebrae on my lab table. But as to the rest of the time between printing the reports and beginning my long stare at the bones on my exam table, well, I don't know how long that was. For all the nothing I was figuring out, I hoped it hadn't been that long. But when Karne showed up, I knew it had been.

"Ms. Connell," he said sharply, making me snap my head up in alarm. I grabbed at the back of my neck and scowled at him. "I have spent the afternoon at Magique; it has been illuminating."

"What?" I blurted. Of all the things I could picture Karne doing, sitting all afternoon at the local peeler bar was not near the top. "Illuminating?"

"Yes," Karne said quickly, walking toward the lab table. He stretched a hand toward a column of vertebrae I'd set out. I slapped lightly at his wrist. He looked up at me, stunned. Then he scowled.

"Don't." I put my hands on my hips and looked across the lab table at him. "How did you get up here alone?"

"I told them we were working this case together." Karne looked back at me, unperturbed. "As we are."

"Then what were you doing in a strip joint all afternoon?" I gestured at him; he watched my hand for a moment.

"I was there with Brent Martinson, lawyer with the Assured Insurance Company branch office in LA." Karne placed his hands at the edge of the lab table, resting his fingers carefully parallel to the line of vertebrae.

"With him?" I said incredulously. "Karne! If you've told building staff you're working the case your identity could come back to him. He's a lawyer; he knows entrapment when he sees it."

"I told the security guard, a man that owes me several favors, that I was working on this case with you. I have not told the staff. Beyond that, I am not affiliated with the police. Entrapment applies to them, not to me. And finally, my identity has never been hidden from him. He simply doesn't care." Karne gave me a self-satisfied look. "Relax, doctor."

"Don't call me that," I said automatically, my brain already on the implications of what Karne had done. "You must've found something out to stay there all afternoon." I turned to him. Karne appeared to be thinking something through.

"I suppose you won't believe that the attractions of the employees overwhelmed my will to leave." Karne said lightly. I snorted. "Very well," Karne said sharply, turning toward me with a pleased look on his face. "Come, Ms. Connell. You aren't getting anywhere here."

"Come where?" I said, shrugging out of my lab coat. I wasn't going to dispute his judgment of my situation in the lab.

"To your apartment, first." He said. "You'll need to change."

"Excuse me?"

"We'll be attending an art opening for Ms. Victoria Grange-Martinson. It's about as formal as a cocktail party, I believe." He held open the door to the lab and put his palm to my lower back as I walked through. I turned to press the four number alarm code.

"Rather obvious alarm code, Connell." He smirked. "The Norman Invasion? Really."

"Why are we going to this opening?" I chose to ignore his sniping this time.

"I'll explain in the car," he said, hustling forward. I had to trot to keep up with him. As soon as he had the car in traffic he started to talk.

"Mr. Martinson is a regular of Magique and well known to the women there." Karne began.

"And to you," I cut in.

"Mm. He's unbearable, really. At any rate, I decided to try Magique after looking through the two missing women's applications for employment at Assured."

"Which you got how?" I demanded.

"By asking. Really, Connell, I am trying to answer your earlier question." I settled back in my seat with a frown on my face. "Thank you. I found that both women had worked at Magique immediately before working at Assured. I suspected Martinson had 'found' them there and offered them more standard employment."

"That's a nice way of putting it," I muttered.

"It seems that was the case. The bouncer told me Martinson generally comes in for lunch, and failing that arrives for a drink after work."

"So you waited."

"I did," Karne paused to merge onto an overcrowded street. "The bartender was kind enough to allow me to wait in the storeroom that overlooks the bar. I simply emerged when he arrived. He was drunk enough to talk before long, just as the bartender had said. A favorite girl of his came over and asked him a few questions I gave her."

"Oh lord, Karne, this is so illegal." I moaned.

"I'm not affiliated with the police, Connell." He made the last turn in the route to my apartment building. "His relationship with his wife, Ms. Victoria Grange-Martinson, collapsed years ago. They have a prenuptial agreement that would financially sting him in a divorce, so he remains unwilling to leave. He takes lovers and she does as well. The wages are his, but the property and investments are hers. Do you begin to see, Connell?"

"The wife has the fortune, and all he has is a job. He's hanging on to her as long as he can," I summarized, "even if that means hiring secretaries to have affairs with him. He gets sick of them and they 'disappear.'"

"I'm not entirely sure that's correct. Not yet, at least." Karne brought the car to a stop and hustled me out the door. We made our way up the stairs in silence. I had my head deep inside my closet when I heard Karne speak again.

"Black would be best." I turned my face toward him, contorting a little to emerge from the end of the hanging bar to which I'd exiled my fancier dresses. "Her work is somewhat avant-garde." Karne had let himself into my bedroom, and was standing with his usual composure next to the pile of lingerie and stockings I'd made on my bed. The unlikely situation nearly made me laugh. I tugged at the knee length black dress in the recesses of my closet until it came free of its hanger. Karne caught it as I tossed it over toward the bed.

"What are you doing?" I peered at him as he held the dress up and inspected the cut.

"It is a bit conservative, but we haven't got the time." He concluded. He handed me the dress and continued to stand there.

"Could you…?" I gestured toward the door to my living room. Karne nodded stiffly and walked out. It struck me he might not have been fully aware that he was standing there in a woman's bedroom until that moment. I grinned to myself as I changed.

When I emerged Karne had changed as well. He wore a closely fitted suit and an expensive looking watch. Far more oddly, he was applying a design in deep black paint to his left ring finger near the knuckle. I stood quietly as he finished; his intent activity seemed to demand it. He held his left hand away from him for a moment before dropping it back to his side and looking at me.

"May I have your left hand?" He said, his tone making it less of a question.

"Why?"

"We'll be married this evening," he paused as my eyebrows shot up. "That's our cover, Connell. Really."

"So you're painting on wedding rings?"

"False tattoos, actually. They're the fashion in Ms. Grange-Martinson's circle." Karne looked critically at his left hand again.

"Tattooed wedding rings? That's hopeful of them." I muttered. Karne grinned.

"There's such a thing as laser removal," he quipped. "We'll be impersonating a couple because neither Martinson can suspect we're the lover of the other. If they do, we'll get nothing out of them."

"I see. If we're together we're not with them."

"Yes. Now give me your left hand." Karne stretched out his left palm to me. I took a few steps toward him and put my hand in his. "Here. On the other side of the lamp." He tugged me to his opposite side so my elbow rested against his stomach. I bit my lip at the awkward position, but Karne didn't seem to notice. He held out the container of ink and asked me to hold it, then laced the fingers of his left hand into mine. He brushed on a stylized set of vines that formed a rough band around my finger.

"When will this come off?" I asked, turning my finished fake tattoo under the light.

"So eager to be rid of me?"

"Karne. Just tell me." I shook my head.

"Nail polish remover will take it off. Until then it's water proof."

"Interesting." I said, still looking at the design. I snapped my head up when Karne handed a tube of lipstick over to me. "What's this?"

"Lipstick."

"I know that. Why do you have it and why are you giving it to me?"

"Connell, you don't wear makeup. Most women in Ms. Grange-Martinson's circle do. This afternoon I picked up some for you." Karne's patient tone grated my nerves.

"Oh all right," I sighed, picking up the set of brightly-wrapped cosmetics Karne handed to me. "Be right back."

"Connell, you do know how…" Karne trailed off when he saw my look.

"Yes, I do," I sighed. "I do have to visit my mother on occasion." I sighed again in spite of myself. Karne's eyes focused intently on my face. I worked to take the grimace out of my expression. Makeup. This opening had better be worth it.

* * *

I teetered on my heels walking through the gallery. It had a brick floor laid without mortar; each irregularity seemed to clutch at my stilettos, just begging me to break an ankle. Karne stayed next to me with his hand alternating between my elbow and my lower back. It wasn't disconcerting after the first twenty minutes. By then I was so tired of trying to stay upright and keep the look of displeasure off my face that I couldn't care about where Karne's hands were. Besides, he was no DuPret. Karne was weird, yes, but he wasn't sleazy.

I clamped down on my internal commentary as Karne led us through the loft-style space into a small rooftop greenhouse. The perimeter was lined with snake grass in pots. The grass had been lashed together at intervals to create tall and straight bundles nearly three feet high. In front of the snake grass sat a series of pedestals that seemed to encroach on the small space in the center. The claustrophobic sense was increased by what sat on the pedestals: dead animals.

"Taxidermy?" I whispered to Karne, turning closer to him. I tried to keep my eyes from widening too noticeably.

"Sculpture," he murmured. He turned to me, smiled, and drew his hand along my jaw line. He then ducked to speak into my ear. "She's here. Red shawl by the door. Call it sculpture. I'm going to ask her about gardening." He drew himself back up to full height and walked away from me toward a trim woman in a dress that reminded me of Imelda Marcos. Her pin-straight hair shone under the exhibit lighting, and a cluster of stones glinted from an elaborate ring on her left index finger. She stretched her hand out to Karne, palm down, and eyed him appreciatively as he took her hand.

A wave of discomfort overtook me as I watched her step closer to him. She was touching him too much. Her hand was constantly flitting from forearm to shoulder. She looked at him too intently. Another wave of worry hit, and brought some clarity to me when it receded. This was Karne we were talking about, not my actual husband. Not my actual anything, for that matter. She could touch him all she wanted. I turned resolutely away from them and peered at the forest of pedestals.

The animals were cunningly preserved. Their eyes seemed actively trained on one another, or things in the room. Each sat in a miniature environment—some of which seemed to be of living plants. Their claws and feet had none of the high glossiness some of the old specimens at the natural history building at college had. They seemed almost like living animals posed for a Victorian-style death portrait. I moved around the room slowly, comparing the positions of the animals. No limbs looked broken, and no skins seemed pierced. I couldn't even make out any insect damage. How did these animals even die? The longer I looked at them the more impressed, and the more disturbed, I became.

I cast my eyes back over to Karne. He was scrawling something on a cocktail napkin as he leaned against the doorframe next to Ms. Grange-Martinson. I fought not to sigh aloud. Couldn't he see she was just angling for her next lover? Didn't he know what was happening? I certainly knew—even from over here. I started to turn away again and stopped as she raised her hand to his arm. It was her left hand, and there was no wedding ring.

All right. Not unusual, really. Especially for sculptors, I imagined. Sculpting is probably a messy job. McLynn probably didn't wear her wedding ring all the time either. Right? Then again, the woman had that huge cluster of rocks on her index finger. At that point she lifted her right hand to shake Karne's hand again. There, on her right ring finger, was what I'd call an unmistakable wedding ring. I turned back toward a field mouse frozen beneath a dwarf tree that's scale made the rodent appear monstrously huge. I couldn't shake out the thought once I'd had it: widows wear their wedding rings on their right hands.

* * *

Karne returned to me soon after that. We spent a mercifully short time in the rest of the gallery, and my presence seemed to deter Ms. Grange-Martinson from speaking to Karne again. After a hairy few moments during which I tried to converse about minimalism with a half-drunk painter, Karne navigated us both out the door. Once we were in the car I was fairly bursting to talk.

"Something's rotten with that woman." I said sharply.

"The painter?"

"No, Grange-Martinson." I turned to Karne, who looked bemused. "She wears her ring like a widow."

"A stoning offence." Karne deadpanned.

"She's had her forehead done, if not her entire face."

"Terrible." Karne muttered.

"She fails to keep her hands to herself."

"How unseemly." Karne barely suppressed a laugh.

"And I can't tell how she kills those animals but I'd believe she beats them to death." I crossed my arms, content with my outline of the woman's faults.

"She does." Karne said mildly. "She breaks their necks."

"That's cruel," I protested. "You can't convince me she's not crazy."

"I wouldn't try." Karne said. He parked the car outside a Thai restaurant and walked around to my door. "Coming, Connell?"

"Yeah, yeah." I muttered. I followed fairly far behind Karne, as my heels prevented speed. By the time I'd entered the restaurant he'd ordered takeout.

"I think we should talk over the case to this point, Connell," Karne said. He'd taken a paper menu and spread it over his knee. His eyes scanned it restlessly as he talked. "I'd like your opinion on a few points."

"Of course." I said readily, trying not to sound excited that master detective Karne thought I could help. "At the lab?"

"At your apartment, if that's all right with you." He looked up at me. I nodded. "Good. I'd like to put in as few appearances at your workplace as I can." He resumed his inspection of the paper menu. I perched on the sliver of bench open beside him and ignored his look of surprise. If he wanted to pose as my husband he could deal with me sitting practically in his lap.

* * *

We sat on the carpet by my coffee table, our legs stretched out side by side beneath it and our backs propped against the couch. The wreckage of our takeout was strewn across the table with a series of line-drawn maps on scrap paper and a set of lists. I'd leaned my head back onto the couch cushion and was staring upward, thinking about the bones of the human neck.

"If she even tried, some process somewhere will be snapped or sheared—even flaked. I can't imagine she'd cause no damage at all." I concluded. I pulled my head back upright. Karne had tented his hands on the edge of the table and was staring intently at them.

"You're missing several vertebrae." He said quietly.

"Yes."

"Could a blow have disfigured only those?"

"Maybe." I considered a moment. If we were talking about a killer who used violent, crushing blows and who only used unmarred body parts for ritual disposal, we were not only talking about a psychopath but one with some anatomical knowledge. And it's so hard to kill a person with just blows to the neck. It's much easier to use a weapon, and well—it didn't fit. "Karne. It takes an outstanding amount of force to break a human neck. Perhaps too much. And there's no pattern to the missing bones—at least, none that would indicate one massive wound to the neck."

"You've said Doctor McLynn found a crushing injury to the arm bones attached to the hand."

"She did. But that's an arm, not a neck." I objected.

"It's only unlikely, Connell. Not impossible." Karne turned toward me, and I was again struck by the unusual color of his eyes. "But there are other means of killing that do not leave marks."

"What are you thinking?" I squinted at him.

"Poison."

"Common for women." I noted. "But let's back up. Say the two women are the source of the vertebrae in the pots. Say Ramos is the source of the hand. We've got a reason for the wife to kill the women, but no reason for her to kill Ramos. We haven't cleared the husband, and we at least know he's in the same place as all three of them."

"It's your instinctive dislike of Ms. Grange-Martinson that started us down this path." Karne noted.

"Suppose so." I agreed. I looked balefully at the pages of notes on the table. "We won't get any farther until I'm in the lab."

"Perhaps not." Karne agreed. He separated his hands for the first time since we'd finished eating; he then started to make piles of notes. I stood and carried the takeout containers to the trash. I caught sight of the clock on the oven and realized I had to be at work in four hours. By the time I turned to walk back toward the living room Karne was standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

"We meet Ms. Grange-Martinson at her private greenhouse at eleven. It's lunch. I'll pick you up at your office at ten." He said.

"Ten? Where do they live?"

"They don't. It's her home—the summer home—and she lives there without him. Trust me about the time." He gave a slight smile at the end.

"Fine. Do you want me to meet you at the end of the street so none of the people in my building see you?" I teased.

"That won't be necessary," he smirked. "Good night, Connell." He turned and quickly let himself out. I followed him to lock the door. He'd left the notes in two tidy piles on the table—one for lists and the other for maps. I thought about putting them in a file, or at least on my desk, but decided the delay in getting to bed was too great a payment for a small increase in tidiness. I fell asleep with my cocktail dress still on, and my heels discarded, one upright and one on its side, beneath the pile of maps on my coffee table.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Objectivity**

"Morning, sunshine," Bridget called from the hallway behind me. I was stumbling my way from the lab to the elevator, my mind still occupied with Ms. Grange-Martinson and what about her set me off. I stopped and stood to the side of the hall until Bridget caught up to me.

"Hot off the press: DNA results." She brandished a set of papers at me.

"That was fast." I wrinkled my nose. The lab generally was too far backlogged to do anything so delicate so quickly.

"I called in a favor with Chad." Bridget said. She reached out and shoved the door open for both of us. We sat side by side a table and opened the file.

"Inconclusive, but suggestive? How?" I drummed my fingers against the table top. "What samples are they comparing this to?"

"Hair. McLynn convinced DuPret to get in there and get hair samples on those three you were talking about."

"Three? You mean the two women and the missing security guard?"

"Those ones, yeah." Bridget flipped a page and squinted at a chart. "Doesn't look like they ran toxins, though."

"How did McLynn know about the three people?" I muttered. "I don't remember saying anything."

"I told her." Bridget turned toward me and tossed her hair behind her shoulder with a swift chopping motion. "DuPret was talking about the two women, so I just added on the missing security guard. Voila."

"They got hair on all three." I said flatly. I had serious doubts about the security guard hair sample, frankly.

"Don't look at me like that; I didn't do it." Bridget grinned. "McLynn put Chad in charge of getting the samples."

"Well, he doesn't often screw things up." I allowed. Chad was the crime scene tech McLynn and I liked to fight over. He was sharp, thorough, and fast. "Does he speak Spanish?"

"Honey, everybody but you speaks Spanish." McLynn's voice carried over from the door. She grinned at us. "You two want to tell me about my brilliance now?"

"Yeah, I do." I said, laughing. "I don't know how you get DuPret to do what you want whenever you want it."

"I'm a mother, honey." McLynn said.

"Bridget tells me you had Chad on this?" I asked.

"Yeah; he wanted to talk to you about the Ramos sample. The lady said something about another detective with black hair?" McLynn raised her eyebrows at me. Bridget turned in her seat and peered at me expectantly.

"She might've meant Karne." I said, hoping that'd be enough.

"Oh my lord, Connell," McLynn said forcefully. "Do not tell me you are going around with that man after the way you met him."

"It's not like that," I protested.

"Wait, you're going out with the hot guy?" Bridget asked.

"No!" I yelped. "No, I'm not going out with him. And yes, I have done some interviews with him." Bridget grinned broadly. McLynn crossed her arms over her chest.

"Don't be an idiot, Connell." McLynn said in a warning tone.

"I'm not. He's got a department pedigree." I said.

"He does—I looked it up. And he's hot." Bridget noted. I gave her a light smack on the upper arm. McLynn's face softened. She joined us at the table.

"So you've seen him?" She asked Bridget.

"I've seen a picture." Bridget noted. She turned to her computer and brought up a photograph of Karne nearly scowling at DuPret at a departmental awards ceremony. McLynn leaned closer to the monitor.

"He is attractive, isn't he," McLynn said quietly. "So, you're mixing business with pleasure?" She turned to me, and Bridget did as well.

"No. He just cares about the case. That's all." The two of them looked at me like they weren't going to argue, but they didn't believe a word I was saying. Fair enough. They didn't need to believe me for it to be true.

I thought Bridget would drop the box of evidence she was holding when Karne walked into the lab. I could tell he caught her reaction, but he acted as though he hadn't. I was grateful. I gathered up my briefcase and walked out with him, mentioning to Bridget that I'd be back in the early afternoon for the case meeting. She merely nodded, still clutching the box just above the lab table.

* * *

Once we were on the freeways I grabbed the copy of the DNA report from my briefcase. With the level of inappropriate information-sharing I'd already done, I figured I'd just keep at it. I suppose that's exactly the kind of thinking that kept me from being a cop or a lawyer in the first place.

"We have DNA profiles on hair samples from the two women, Ramos, and the hand." I shifted the papers in my hand. Karne's forehead wrinkled.

"DuPret had the presence of mind to order hair samples?" He said at last, frowning.

"No. McLynn told him to do it, and told him which techs to send on the job." I sighed. "I didn't have time to speak with Chad before I left, but I'll get to him this afternoon. I'm not sure about that hair sample for Ramos."

"Chad?" Karne raised his eyebrows.

"Crime scene tech. He retrieved the samples." I paused. "He's McLynn's first choice for difficult jobs."

"Good." Karne's expression flicked from irritation to curiosity, then quickly returned to neutral.

"The hand sample is consistent with the Ramos hair sample. I'm especially suspicious of that, actually—I think they might've found the baby's hair." I muttered the last part.

"They may have. Did the lab test the hair for toxins?" Karne flicked his eyes toward me. I flipped to the second page of the report to verify what Bridget had noticed earlier.

"No. I can order them." I said. Karne nodded.

"Ms. Grange-Martinson expects me to do most of the talking. I've told her I'm a gardening enthusiast interested in her use of dwarf plants. She understands you're not much of a gardener, and are there primarily to accompany me." Karne flicked his eyes toward me again. "And take that ring off; she can't think you're hiding your wedding band."

"Of course not." I rolled my eyes, but did as he said. I slid the large silver ring I'd been wearing to cover my fake tattoo over to my right ring finger.

"I've led her to believe you work in business in LA. I've been imprecise. You may want to invent a more thorough story." He paused to navigate a long, curved overpass. "I've told her I work as a landscape architect."

"I'll tell her I work in publishing."

"Why?" Karne lifted an eyebrow.

"Because it's boring. She won't ask for details." I explained.

"Good." Karne smirked. "Though she wouldn't have no matter what you said. She's utterly self-absorbed."

"Great." I sighed. The drive took us past an improbable stretch of houses with the kind of green lawns that only come from private gardeners. We eventually pulled up at the gate of a shingled house with an outlandishly-designed shed behind it. I assumed, since the outbuilding didn't seem sure whether it wanted to be an aircraft hangar or a potting shed, that it was her studio. We pulled down the stamped concrete drive toward it.

Karne opened the passenger door for me, and I stood just in time to see Ms. Grange-Martinson giving me a sour scowl. She shifted her features into a winning smile as she walked toward the car, and seemed to turn the full force of her charm on Karne the moment he faced her way.

"Welcome to my home," she said brightly, her bleached teeth conspicuous against her glossed lips.

"Thank you," Karne said smoothly. He took her hand and brought his lips to her knuckles like an eighteenth century gallant. I had to tighten my stomach muscles to keep from laughing. "Victoria, this is my beautiful wife Violet." Karne gestured toward me. Violet. How in the hell had he found out about my real name? No one, but no one, calls me Violet. I gritted my teeth.

"Charmed," the woman said, her shining teeth tight together.

"Likewise," I said, using the voice I use on my mother when she starts talking about hairstyles.

"I've got tea laid in the greenhouse, if you'll follow me." Victoria stretched a hand out toward the main house. Karne took my elbow and we fell in behind her. "I'm so flattered you wanted to see what I've done with plants, Mr. Connell; I've only picked up what I know from experimenting."

"But you know a great deal, clearly," Karne replied. I'd nearly choked when she said the name. You'd think he would've mentioned that we were using my surname.

"You're too sweet," she purred. We arrived in the greenhouse, which was populated with several of Victoria's finished pieces. A small table set with tea and small sandwiches sat in the center with three chairs. An elk head loomed out of a thicket of ferns near the door to the house, and the potted flowers were alive with stuffed rabbits and squirrels. Karne guided me into the seat that backed against the wall of the house and placed his own back toward the room. Victoria sat against a glass wall.

As we ate they fell deep into conversation about small plants. I lost the thread fairly early but was impressed by several recurrent themes in Victoria's speech. She mentioned several times the amount of care her landscapes required, and that anything less than complete attention would make them imperfect. She'd talk about finishing the illusion, or keeping the landscape "dreamlike." It was as though she wanted to spend all her time and energy creating something so perfect that it ceased to exist in the real world. She also exhaustively catalogued all the landscapes she'd created that turned out to be imperfect, and the ways she destroyed them. She was judge, jury and executioner.

Karne held his own throughout the discussion; their conversation required only the barest nods from me. I put all my attention into looking at the stuffed animals Victoria kept hidden in her plants. It took several minutes of cataloguing the area around me, but eventually I noticed that she stuffed birds as well as mammals. In the upper reaches of the more stout plants in the greenhouse there were small nests that held tiny songbirds. The nests appeared to be made of grass, but as I stared at them I realized the material had to be something else. Finally Victoria got up to get more water for tea, and I took the opportunity to peer more closely at one of the birds. Hair. The nest was lined with hair.

She returned moments later and I tried to swallow my revulsion. Sure, the hair was probably horse hair or other animal hair from her taxidermy. But the woman struck me the wrong way, and her having a greenhouse full of hair-lined bird nests really struck me the wrong way. Karne covered with small talk for a while, but Victoria seemed to sense something was off.

"We're neglecting you, Violet," she said, smiling. "Are you much of a gardener?"

"I'm not, actually," I stalled. "That's Oliver's specialty." I gave her a smile I hoped didn't look too strained. "Actually I was noticing your tea. It's not like any blend I've tasted—do you mind my asking what it is?"

"Oh it's my own blend," she fanned out her fingers toward the teapot. "I tend several herbs and make up blends of them; it's something of a hobby." She looked over at Karne and gave him a broad smile. "I'm afraid I've annoyed my friends with my custom tea blends."

"I don't see how you could have; the tea is excellent." Karne demurred. "Though I'd think you'd have to be a bit careful with your fertilizer and pesticide on the herbs you use. Do you grow them organically?"

"Oh no," she said, fanning her fingers out again. "I go lightly on them, but I do use chemicals."

The two fell into a conversation about pests and pesticides that was indecipherable to me. I tilted my tea cup and looked at the color of the brew, a reddish amber. To my surprise Karne reached over the table and took my hand. He ran his thumb across my knuckles, and I could see Victoria tense as she saw it. He turned to me.

"I've got to return you to your office this afternoon, don't I, love?" He asked.

"You do. But I know you were so looking forward to seeing the bonsai." I demurred.

"Well, we should see them at once, shouldn't we?" Victoria got to her feet and pushed her chair back in place. We followed her from the greenhouse and onto the lawn, then into the studio building. Karne instantly darted to a rank of bonsai and started exclaiming about them. Victoria followed him. I wandered slowly around the room, trying to memorize what I saw there. I was disappointed that it all seemed so standard: the basic tools of carpentry and gardening, a selection of long knives, thick threads and needles, and a rank of glass bell domes. I walked closer to what seemed to be the stitching area. On the table was a bird, eyeless yet and awkwardly posed. When I lifted my head my sight was right in line with what I first thought was an aquarium. Then I recognized it: a de-fleshing tank. One of my biology professors had one. In goes a dead animal, out comes a skeleton.

I wandered back over to Karne and Victoria, who'd come to a stop before a row of chemicals. They were again discussing pesticides and fertilizers. Karne had to be on to something, I knew, but I couldn't see it.

* * *

"He had him arrested?" I repeated. "Mr. Martinson. The lawyer. DuPret had him arrested?"

"Yes, for the millionth time." Bridget blew a piece of hair out of her face. "And yes, he is claiming the bones are from the women and that Martinson is a serial killer."

"What about the hand? What about Ramos?" I blustered. "He can't even prove those bones belong to the women. He can't! If I can't he can't."

"I know. He's a moron. The DA has made a mistake. DuPret is going to make us all look like a bunch of amateurs. Chocolate?" She shoved a bar of dark chocolate across the desk to me. Half the squares had been snapped off already.

"Drowning your sorrows?"

"Yeah. DuPret was just in here trying to find you. Fair warning." I pushed the remainder of the bar back to Bridget, who pushed it back toward me. "Take it with you to see McLynn. I think she needs a hug."

"I'm going, I'm going." I took my file on the bones and the chocolate, and was headed toward the door when McLynn came through looking harried.

"Lock the door before that blowhard gets here, will you?" She said, her voice tight with irritation. "I've been telling that jackass he's wrong all day, and he's still…"

"Doc!" DuPret walked through the door to the lab with a large grin on his face. He stood on the opposite side of one of the lab tables from the three of us, and for a moment I had an impulse to overturn it on top of him. "I bagged Martinson. Turns out those missing women were secretaries he'd hired away from Magique."

"Did he confess?" I asked flatly.

"Nah, course not," DuPret said. "But you've got bones for two victims. He'll cave."

"I have bones for two victims and that's it, DuPret. I'm not testifying to anything more than that." My tone got terser as I went.

"And I'm not telling a jury that hand has any relation to Martinson, DuPret; you can kiss that goodbye." McLynn chimed in.

"Oh I'll have a confession by then. Probably with some details about the rest of the remains. That's how these things go." DuPret puffed his chest out.

"That is not how this will go." Karne's voice cut through the nascent argument. Bridget's eyes widened.

"Karne! What the hell are you…" DuPret began.

"Yes, yes. What am I doing here?" Karne snarled. "DuPret, you're an idiot."

"Karne," I began, moving toward him and putting a hand on his forearm.

"Tell us, detective." Karne said coldly. "How did Martinson kill the victims? Why? How did their remains come to be in the ficus trees at his office?"

"I told you, he'll…" DuPret protested.

"You told us nothing." Karne snapped. "You have no theory; you've made a stab in the dark." Karne turned toward me, his face suddenly calm again. "Connell, I'll need your assistance this evening. Are you free at seven?"

"Sure," I said, puzzled.

"Good." Karne nodded. He walked nearly out of the door, then turned back to say goodbye. DuPret, seething, followed him out.

"Just what are you assisting that young man with, Connell?" McLynn raised her eyebrows at me. When I didn't say anything she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"I don't usually know until it happens. I go with him to interview people, mostly." I explained. McLynn uncrossed her arms, and I considered the interrogation over. "You know, there's something he said."

"Yeah?" Bridget asked.

"He asked whether we'd tested the hair samples for toxins." I said. "Suppose we could do that?"

"I'll order it." McLynn said. "DuPret's wrong about that lawyer." Bridget made a noise of agreement and I nodded. Not only was he wrong, he was wrong and trying to head to trial. That could do nothing but protect the real killer.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Transmission**

When Karne didn't start in the direction of my apartment I was confused for a moment, then slightly nervous. McLynn's appropriate suspicions of the sort of man who'd want to work with a young female on an investigation of a dismembered hand had always rested just beneath my more dominant, gut-level trust of Karne. He felt like someone I could trust, so I did. But I didn't trust him enough not to wonder where he was taking me.

"We're going to my apartment, Connell. And stop worrying whether I'll turn out to be a psychopathic killer." Karne spared a glance at me once he finished merging onto the freeway. I shook my head.

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"What?" Karne raised an eyebrow. Was he really unsure what I was saying, or was he toying with me? Did it matter?

"Respond to things I haven't said." I paused, thinking I ought to explain why it bothered me but wondering if he'd care one iota.

"Connell. You know a psychopath couldn't have resisted the desire to kill you by now." His voice sounded distracted and I wondered if he'd heard me at all.

"I know, all right? You just do a few classic things." I sounded whiny. Good lord.

"Which I would not do if I were pursuing some dangerous agenda with you, knowing that you know the profile. Really Connell, you're beginning to insult me."

"Sorry." I sunk lower in my seat and watched the car next to me. In it a woman on a cell phone was gesturing angrily with one hand.

"You ought not to be. You have every reason to be on guard in your profession." Karne said matter-of-factly. He took an exit into a green residential area with enough mature trees along the streets to prove it had been there several decades. That was ages in LA terms.

"Your profession too," I muttered. The corner of Karne's mouth lifted a bit.

"Here." Karne pulled up in front of a mid-century modern apartment building of the white and blocky type. The three floors of the building were distinguishable by long ribbons of plate glass at each level. The entrance, not immediately apparent to me, was hidden behind a patterned screen of punched metal.

Karne's apartment, by contrast, was a mass of arcane clutter arranged along the walls and on tall shelves. In the front room was a lab-style table made of the sort of matte black non-reactive material found in high school chemistry labs, complete with Bunsen burners and a central light fixture. His large desk stretched around the corner near the windows and was overtaken with drifts of letters and newspaper clippings. I recalled his careful stacks of the case materials when he left my apartment and wondered a little, but turned my attention quickly to a tall set of hardware store metal shelves.

On them were books—piles of them—ranging from hidebound copies of early forensic reference manuals to a heavily bookmarked copy of Gray's. On the opposite wall shelves of matching height held what looked like the contents of a sideshow prop room mixed with a surrealist's collection of nineteenth century oddments. There was a bistro table with two chairs in front of those shelves; it held a French press coffee pot with a generous layer of wet grounds lurking in the bottom. A modern gas-jet fireplace faced in polished travertine tile took up a column of space in front of two 1930s-era chairs, both frayed slightly at the seams. A red couch with tidy squared lines sat between the fireplace and the bookshelves, and what appeared to be a Noguchi coffee table squatted in front it.

Karne had disappeared down a hallway that I assumed led to his bedroom and bathroom. I took a seat at one of the chairs by the fireplace and waited for his return. Apart from the door to the apartment there were only the door to the hallway and one other, which I supposed had to lead to a kitchen. Of course, judging from the looks of him, Karne might not eat. I turned to look out the window. Few people walked down the street, but that was typical for LA. The traffic was sparse. I found myself wondering how much time he spent alone in here.

When Karne reappeared he had a file box full of bottles in his hands. He set it on the lab table and collapsed somewhat dramatically into the chair opposite me. When he turned his eyes on me I had to fight the urge to squirm.

"Well?" He said. His voice had an edge of irritation I didn't understand.

"Well what?" I countered. "What's in the box?"

"Fertilizers, pesticides, some soils," Karne waved a hand in the direction of the lab table. "What did you think of her?"

"I told you. What do you think?" I set my jaw. I could out-stubborn him, I was sure. He looked at me a moment and smirked, then stood abruptly. On the narrow shelf above the fireplace he'd stashed a box of hand-rolled cigarettes and a set of wooden matches. He lit one and held out the box to me. I shook my head. From the smell of his, the strength of his tobacco would give me a killer headache.

"I saw you react to something you saw in the corner of her workshop. What was it?" He threw himself back into the chair and flicked his ash onto the floor. I watched it fall.

"She has a de-fleshing tank." I tried to sound matter-of-fact.

"Indeed?" Karne raised his eyebrows and dragged on his cigarette. "Interesting. You are familiar with the chemicals used in such a tank?"

"I know who to ask." I crossed my legs and slouched back against the cushions, smoothing down my skirt as I went. "And another thing: in some of the bird nests in the greenhouse she had what looked like hair."

"Did she?" Karne raised his eyebrows again. "You noted the color." He gave me a stern look.

"Several. Ranging from dark brown to auburn, but no blond. The texture seemed coarse to me, but I didn't have much time to check it out." I flicked my eyes over to Karne's hand dangling the cigarette off the side of his chair. He'd continued to look toward me, but his eyes seemed unfocused as he thought.

"She uses several products that contain arsenic." He said abruptly. He'd started to look at me again. I picked my nails lightly against the upholstery of the chair arm.

"That's what's in the box?" I peered at him. He nodded. "It's why you want to know about the de-fleshing tank chemicals." He nodded again. I pulled my cell phone from my bag and hit Chad's number on my speed dial.

"Amy?" He sounded utterly puzzled. "You all right?"

"Yeah, Chad. I just have a question." I could see Karne straining to hear the conversation I leaned forward in my chair.

"Shoot." I could hear a basketball game commentary cease in the background.

"You're familiar with de-fleshing tanks, right?" I tried to sound casual. Karne smirked at me.

"Yeah." Chad drew the word out, uncertain. "What the hell are you up to, Amy?"

"Just humor me. Do you know what chemicals are in those?" The silence on the other end worried me.

"I have my old notes somewhere. Hold on." A crackle of static told me Chad was moving through his apartment. I heard the sound of shuffling paper a moment later. "If I even find out you've got a squirrel skeleton collection I'm going to tell everyone we know, Amy."

"You hush." I shook my head. Karne smirked again. "Did you find it?"

"Yeah. So, you going to let me talk to that detective friend of yours now?" Chad sounded proud of himself. I heard myself gasp. "Rumor mill, Amy, rumor mill. So how about it?" Karne nodded and reached out a hand.

"Yeah, hang on." I passed the phone to Karne, who introduced himself and gave a series of assenting noises. I could vaguely hear a few polysyllabic chemical names, but Karne had slouched back into his chair and the volume of the phone hardly reached me. At length he handed the phone back to me.

"Amy?" Chad shuffled a few more papers.

"Yeah," I said. "I appreciate all that."

"Anytime. And listen, I want to meet with you guys about this case. I heard half the story, and I want to know the rest before I head out for samples again." I nodded, then realized I had to talk. Annoying how much that happens.

"Yeah, I hear you. I think Bridget and McLynn are coming down tomorrow afternoon about three. How's that work for you?" I fished in my bag for my planner. I could hear Chad doing the same thing.

"Fine unless something comes up. Oh, and I forgot to tell McLynn: I got a print on Ramos, I think. Don't know if that helps." I sat up straight in my chair.

"Chad, you're a genius. Thank you so much. That does help." I gushed. I could hear Chad chuckling quietly.

"You all owe me lunch, then." He said. We said our goodbyes and Karne sat forward, flicking ash on the way.

"You'll tell me your results?" He gave me another one of his intense looks. I nodded excitedly.

"Soon as I get them, if you want." He nodded sharply, a faint grin lifting the corners of his mouth.

"I believe the arsenic is important. You'll test for heavy metals in the hair samples?" He raised his eyebrows. I squinted at him.

"Mode of delivery?" He grinned a bit more broadly.

"The plants, the plants." He paused to look at me again. "Think, Connell."

"I'm thinking," I snapped. Plants. Why would two secretaries have access to Ms. Grange-Martinson's plants? More importantly, why would they have ingested enough garden chemicals to make a difference?

"I'll aid you." Karne smiled a bit more and leaned farther forward. "I spoke with Mr. Martinson again."

"Karne!" I scowled at him. He waved a hand between us.

"He agreed, he agreed. At any rate, his wife was in the habit of sending her teas with him to work. In fact, that seemed to be her only contact with her workplace." Karne raised his eyebrows at me.

"She sent arsenic tea to the secretaries?" I sat back in the chair.

"So it appears." Karne dipped his chin and settled back as well.

"That's why you want the hair tests. Duration of dose." I dropped the palm of my hand down to the arm of the chair. I looked over to the fireplace, thinking. In the reflection I could see Karne continue to look directly at me. "But what about the husband? She sent the tea with him."

"He was in the habit of repackaging the gifts for his mistresses." Karne took a long drag of his cigarette and carried it to the mantelpiece to stub it out against an incense burner.

"Say she knew that. We still have a big problem." Karne nodded. Of course he would've thought of it. I went ahead for my own sake. "How did she get the bodies, and how did she dismember them? Following that, how did she manage to bury the bones?"

"And why are there no hospital records of the women's deaths?" Karne interrupted. He fell into silence then, having supplied himself with another cigarette. After a while I became uncomfortable and sure I was intruding on his privacy. Our conversation had packed my mind, and I felt a desperate need to talk about it. But this wasn't the place.

* * *

"That's a hit." Bridget mumbled at her computer screen. Chad, McLynn and I all pressed closer behind her to see the file. "It's his."

"Sure is." McLynn sighed. "We definitely have Iliver Ramos' hand."

"Nice, Chad." I muttered. He nodded beside me. We backed up to give Bridget room to turn around. We'd been gathered in the corner of my lab near the desks, and I'd locked the door. None of us were saying we were avoiding DuPret until we had a game plan, but we were. And we'd all turned our cell phones on silent. I smirked. Passive aggression in the forensics profession: who'd have predicted?

"So. We've got the missing women's vertebrae and Ramos' hand." Bridget said, referring to her penciled list of case points. "We know the women are dead, but we can't say that about Ramos. We can put Martinson in the same office as all three, but we could do that with anyone else working there."

"So we've got an improper disposal charge, and that's it." I summarized.

"And we've got nothing specific to link to Martinson." Chad added.

"That's it?" Bridget looked at each of us in turn. Chad and I nodded, but McLynn reached for her case file.

"I've got those toxin results." She handed me a packet of graphs. I flipped to the heavy metals screening and nearly fell over backward. "I know," McLynn said. "I near about fainted."

"What?" Chad looked over my shoulder at the chart. "Heavy metals?" Bridget stood to look as well. I tilted the paper toward her.

"Long dose, too." She contributed.

"Environmental?" Chad thought aloud. McLynn shook her head.

"Can't see how. Those levels are just too high. No, that's a poisoning if I ever saw one. And twice." McLynn shook her head again. "That puts us right back to suspected homicide."

"Oh, we all know we never really left." I scoffed. McLynn set the file down on my desk. "So here we are: poisoning suspected for two women, improper disposal for Ramos. No good ideas about how it happened, but we've got when. We also don't know how the bones made it into the office plants."

"So basically, we don't know enough for an arrest. At all." Chad crossed his arms and leaned back against the edge of Bridget's desk. "I don't think DuPret does either."

"The best we can do is be honest when we testify, I think." I let my eyes wander over to the bones still laid out on my table. "Same as always."

"The case'll fall apart on him." McLynn concluded. "It will." I stayed in the lab after everyone had left, hoping to get something more out of the little I knew. I stood over the diagrams of the bones I'd sketched in my notes and reviewed the positioning of each one, thinking the context might tell me more than the vertebrae themselves. Every burial was in a ficus tree pot. I'd known that, but I hadn't thought about it. I'd been too busy thinking about arsenic and Ms. Grange-Martinson. Well. Ficus trees. I strode over to my computer and sat down to research them. The potential medicinal uses didn't help one shred. Strike that. Symbolism, maybe? I put my fingertips to my temples. Isn't this stuff Karne's forte?

On a whim I looked up the origin of the name. Nothing jumped out at me, but at the end of the entry for "ficus" there were a series of quotes to illustrate usage. I set the entry to print and started down the hall to the floor's communal printer. No sense wasting the lab's color ink, right? Wrong. That turned out to be a tactical error, as DuPret showed up just after I returned to the lab.

"Well, Doc? You ready to hand me a homicide determination yet?" DuPret's voice was loud in the room after the long silence. I rested my hands on the edge of my table and leaned toward him.

"McLynn's got new results on her hair samples for the women that point to extended exposure to arsenic." I'd decided to tell him as quickly as possible in the hopes he'd let it drop in a timely fashion. He didn't. He began to pace on the opposite side of the table, gesturing and complaining. I turned away from him to pack my briefcase, and that sent him into a torrent of abuse against Karne. I put my briefcase strap on my shoulder and gestured toward the door.

"What, you're meeting him to talk about the case, right?" DuPret blustered.

"No, I'm going home. Goodbye." I shut the lights off when I reached the door. He hurried out of the room, still complaining. I locked up and set the code, then headed for the elevators. At least DuPret didn't follow me downstairs, I thought.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Escape**

I pounded on the door to Karne's apartment, glad I'd had the presence of mind to look at the number when I left him to think. Silence. I pounded harder. At length I heard shuffling, then footsteps. They hesitated. I pounded a third time. Karne cracked the door first, then opened it.

"Karne, she's leaving." I'd left my bowl of cereal half-eaten on my breakfast table and had come still disheveled from waking up. I plowed on, striding into his apartment without asking. "She's an invited artist at an exhibition in Italy—starts next week—she's going to leave." Karne closed the door and followed me into the front room. As I made my way to the couch my brain caught up with what I'd seen when I walked through the door. Karne was dressed in nothing but boxers, and he'd been holding a huge curved knife. I heard a strangled squeak come out my throat, and I whirled to face him. He stopped short, putting a hand out to keep from knocking into me.

"Really, Connell," he began. He then seemed to follow my eyes as I stared at the knife. He let out one of his barking laughs.

"What are you—you're in your underwear and you've—you have a knife?" I blurted. Karne laughed again.

"Connell, you're beside yourself. Sit down." He gestured toward the red couch. I obediently dropped onto the cushions, still watching as Karne sprawled in an armchair and placed the knife on the coffee table. "It's called a khuri."

"Tell me you weren't shaving with that thing, Karne." I blathered. Even as I said it I knew it didn't make sense and I wished I could retract it, but my ability to keep my mouth shut is impaired before noon. Karne clapped a hand to his chest and laughed hard.

"I'd have cut my head off; of course not." He sobered up for a moment, then looked at me and started laughing again. I patted at my hair, uncomfortable. "You've read about the exhibition in the Arts section of the morning paper?" He looked over at me. I nodded, finding it hard to keep my eyes up at his face. The man was in his shorts, for crying out loud.

"You got my message about the arsenic?" I forced my eyes back over to his face from the mantelpiece, where they'd been attracted by a forest of cigarette butts. He nodded and looked keenly at me.

"She must be prevented from leaving; you're correct. I take it DuPret remains convinced Martinson is guilty?" Karne raised his eyebrows. I nodded. "Unfortunate. You have your cell phone?"

"Yes; why?" I felt around in my purse to make sure I did have it, and drew it out when I found it.

"I want to call him." Karne's attention had wandered to the window. He snapped his eyes back to me. "He won't answer a call from me; he'll answer one from you."

"Sly." I smirked as I handed him the phone.

"DuPret," Karne nearly sounded polite, but I could hear DuPret bark some sort of response. Karne scowled. "Yes, I realize. You are aware of the arsenic tests?" DuPret made some other loud comment, and Karne scowled even more deeply. "Only this: Martinson's wife uses hair in her sculptures. You may find more evidence of arsenic in her workshop." DuPret's tone changed, and his next comment went on at length. "I understand. I do disagree, but I see neither of us is in a position to make a determination." I could hear DuPret say something quickly; then they closed the conversation.

"You just handed her to him!" I scolded. Karne lifted an eyebrow at me.

"Then we will see if he is intelligent enough to receive the gift, Connell." Karne handed the phone back to me. I put it in my purse automatically, still staring at the space where his hand had been.

"You didn't tell him to watch for the tea." I turned my attention to Karne, who had lit a cigarette and was now looking out the window, smiling slightly as he blew a stream of smoke straight out into the air.

"No, I didn't." He chuckled. "Do you think your friend Chad would mind?" He turned toward me, tapping his ash over the arm of his chair.

"I'm sure he wouldn't." I grinned. DuPret wouldn't get the credit—at least, if he did, he'd know he didn't deserve it.

* * *

"Arsenic all over the place, Amy!" Bridget continued spreading sheets of results around the lab table; I followed her around. True to form, Chad had taken samples of every plant, hair, and dried plant he could find. He also swabbed some mortars and pestles that seemed to have been used to grind dried plants. And it was just as Bridget said. Arsenic all over the place. I suppose it was a little sick of me, but I really wanted to jump up and down. I settled for calling McLynn.

"Honey, I saw! DuPret's going to be mad enough to spit nails, you know." Her voice was shot through with the sound of her breath as though she had the phone cradled between her head and shoulder. "And I bet you he's coming your way first."

"I bet he is. No matter what, though, he's going to have to work a lot harder to convict Martinson. Any defense attorney's going to argue poison's not a male lust killer's weapon." Bridget gave an exaggerated nod as she listened to me.

"If you see Chad before I do, tell him I need to see him, okay?" McLynn said. Her voice faded in volume as though the receiver had slipped. I decided to get off the phone with her so she could have one less thing to do.

With his usual impeccable timing, Karne walked into the lab just as Bridget finished laying out the array of results. He was wearing the conservative gray suit I'd first seen him in. He walked over to me and grabbed my arm, leaning close to my ear. "It's urgent," he muttered. I met his eyes for a moment and was startled to see such a grave look on his face.

"Bridget?" I could hear her respond from behind a rank of shelves. She must've fled when she saw him with me—I knew I'd hear about it later. "I'm taking an early lunch." I was already grabbing my work bag and following Karne out the door as she responded.

Karne waited until we got in the car to start talking. Then he threw it into gear and sped like a rally-class driver, speaking succinctly and with an edge of annoyance.

"I am surprising you with a trip to Italy. We will attend the exhibition while we are in Milan. As we will fly by executive charter to New York City before boarding a commercial flight, we will be in the same terminal as Ms. Grange-Martinson, whose charter flight leaves this afternoon.

"We know nothing of the search of her workshop. We do, however, know that she has had damage done to some of her work. I have heard it from my friend the gallery owner, and you have heard it from me. We know nothing specific, only that some pieces are no longer suitable for display.

"I'll thank you to commit anything you notice to memory, but don't worry as much about the things she says. I am carrying a recording device."

"Karne!" I protested, though I knew he'd ignore me. "You know you shouldn't."

"Yes, Connell, I realize any evidence on it is inadmissible in court. But it may serve to force DuPret to arrest her. The rest can be arranged." He waved a hand; I'd come to hate that gesture.

"What do you think you're going to get her to say?" I threw up my hands.

"Not say, Connell. Do. I believe the rest of the remains of the women and of Mr. Ramos are beneath the new gravel extension beyond the concrete of Ms. Grange-Martinson's driveway, and I plan to lead her to believe they're on the verge of being excavated as part of a construction project." Karne smirked. He glanced over at me. "You did notice that the gravel extension went nowhere and was not used for parking."

"Karne, I'm really not sure this is…" I began.

"Connell, I'm not going to challenge her to a duel. Stop fussing. And take that ring off." He flung his hand over in my direction. I set my jaw, but moved my ring over to my right hand to expose the false tattoo.

"Who's fussing now?" I goaded.

"You do know how to use a handgun," Karne said. I opened my mouth to say something about having gone on hunting trips a few times as a child, but decided to give the unvarnished truth.

"Not well." I shifted in my seat. Karne grunted. "Karne, you wouldn't actually shoot her, would you? I mean you won't, right?" I looked over at him. The muscles of his jaw moved beneath the skin. I'd annoyed him.

"I want you to learn to shoot, Connell." He flicked his keen gray eyes over to me. I found myself looking directly back into them as I often avoided doing. He looked honestly concerned. A tiny squeeze made its way from my throat to my chest.

"Okay." My voice sounded small. It matched how I was beginning to feel. This was all exciting when we were just doing interviews and sitting up nights thinking. But DuPret's part of the usual job was just frightening. It was plain frightening—and nothing else.

My left hand grasped convulsively at my old knee injury. I couldn't even run away—not that I'd have to—if I needed to run. At least, not very fast. I felt Karne's palm against the back of my wrist before I registered what was happening. His hand was large, warm, and dry. The skin had the kind of calluses mine had in school: chemistry lab calluses. I flipped my hand over and laced my fingers in his, and I held on. He left his hand in mine, his fingers loosely resting in the webs of my fingers, until we reached the airport parking lot.

* * *

Just as Karne had said, Ms. Grange-Martinson was standing in the private departures area. She had an impressive glossy chocolate brown handbag large enough to carry a kitchen mixer sitting at her feet as she sat tapping something into an electronic organizer. Her shining hair was tightly controlled in a chignon, and her tasteful shade of lipstick had precise edges, even at the corners of her mouth. On seeing Karne she uncrossed her legs and stood gracefully, stowing her organizer in her bag and walking toward us in one smooth series of motions. She extended her hand as usual, and Karne fawned over her as I'd come to expect.

The start of the conversation was just as Karne said it would be. We stood before the plate glass wall of the terminal watching the planes take off and chatting about the exhibits and Ms. Grange-Martinson's recent misfortune. Then, of course, things went off track.

"I'd heard you two were traveling at the same time I was," she said. Karne kept the surprise out of his demeanor, but I wasn't sure I did. She should not have had any way of knowing. She continued: "I took the liberty of bringing along some of the tea you so enjoyed, dear." She withdrew a small muslin pouch screen printed with abstract flowers from her bag. The packaging was beautiful; I could see why Mr. Martinson would be tempted to give it to his mistress of the moment.

"Oh, you've gone out of your way," I gushed, taking the package gingerly out of her hand. I turned it over, examining the printed designs. "Thank you very much; I'm sure we'll both enjoy it." I smiled up at her, thinking of the old cliché about smiles that don't reach the eyes.

"Dear, you mustn't share," she clucked at me. Her speech was always a little ponderous and her syntax straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, but this was really odd. "A wife's always got to have small luxuries only for herself." She sounded absolutely matronly. I could feel the urge to become flustered creeping up. I forced a polite laugh.

"You don't keep enough of those, Violet." Karne reached over and took a strand of my hair between his fingers. He drew his hand down the length of it, causing it to tug lightly at the root. He kept eye contact the entire time, and once again I felt a constriction force from my throat to my stomach. What was this, anyway? Sometimes I almost thought he meant it. I cast my eyes down at my feet, and then forced them back up to his face.

"Of course I do, love," I played along. I turned toward Ms. Grange-Martinson, who'd clasped her hands tightly together in front of her. "He's taking me off to Milan just to avoid the construction, isn't he?"

"Construction?" She raised her eyebrows and let her hands go back to her sides. The skin on the back of her hand was pink from the pressure of her grip.

"They've torn up the neighborhood," Karne griped. "I'm surprised you haven't heard. I think the underground telecom line will run right under the gravel extension of your driveway."

"Underground?" She stepped forward along the glass wall. I leaned away from her, but forced myself not to step back. Her face seemed to collapse into age; two wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows and deep lines formed around her mouth. "They're excavating?"

"They've claimed they'll put it all back together, of course." Karne waved his hand in his customary dismissive manner. "I suppose we'll see when we return."

"I'm sure it'll be all right," I added. Her face had paled as we talked. She took a step backward and put her hand on the rail. I could see her thumbnail blanch from the pressure of her grip. Then she began to redden, and her carriage straightened back to her usual ballerina posture.

"I'd like to see about it regardless," she said. "I'll just place a call or two. If you'll excuse me." She strode away leaving her bag at our feet, then whirled and sped back to retrieve it. Her controlled step was gone; in its place was a hard and loud heel to match her wide stride.

"Karne," I hissed once she'd gone. He turned toward me, outwardly unperturbed.

"I've considered this." He turned back to the window once he'd said his piece. Shortly afterward he turned back toward me. "May I borrow your cell phone again, Connell?"

I handed it to him without saying much. I felt awfully uncertain about this plan now that we were carrying it out. It simply seemed too cloak-and-dagger. Karne dialed DuPret and listened to the usual two rings before the detective picked up.

"DuPret, Ms. Grange-Martinson is on her way to her country home and workshop. I believe she's headed to the site at which the remains are hidden." Karne's voice was terse, but he kept a calm pace. I could barely hear DuPret's surprised response. "Yes, I think a few uniforms wouldn't hurt. If I'm wrong, it's little harm done." DuPret again seemed to agree. There was a short silence. "Yes, of course." Karne turned toward me and listened to DuPret for another moment, then handed me the phone.

"Connell," I spoke quickly, happy to be on familiar turf.

"Look, I'm sending a few blues like he said." DuPret explained.

"Good. I don't think he's wrong, DuPret." I heard the defensive note in my voice, and I suspected the detective heard it too. He was trained to hear it.

"If he is, Connell…" he began.

"I know. It's my head." I confirmed. "Got it."

"Good." DuPret had used his usual tough-guy language, but he sounded frustrated and tired. I imagined I sounded that way too. Really I was wary—wary of what Karne and I were risking. I didn't really have a clear idea of what that was, and I think that was the worst part of it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Final Acts**

"Quickly, Connnell," Karne took my wrist in his grip and pulled me, trotting to match his long stride, from the terminal to his car. I was barely in my seat before he sped away, glaring at the roads as though he was daring them to prevent him from beating her to the house.

"She'll notice there' s no construction, won't she?" I'd struggled to wrench my skirt into place beneath me and snap my seatbelt on as Karne took the series of curved ramps that led away from the airport.

"I've put a notice in her mailbox that announces the start of a construction project like the one I described. She'll expect it to start tomorrow." Karne let out a quiet hiss as we reached a congested intersection. He reached across my lap and opened the dash compartment. I shifted warily as he groped its contents.

"If you'll tell me what you're after," I began. Karne's hand closed around something and he nearly rammed his elbow into my thigh as he drew it out of the compartment. I flinched when I saw it. It was a handgun. Karne turned to look at me as we remained stopped at the light.

"She will be volatile," he said calmly.

"Please, Karne," I barely resisted the urge to clutch at his forearm. "You can't just do this."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd stop questioning me, Connell," he snapped. He glanced at the safety and reached into his jacket, depositing the gun in his holster in one practiced motion. I forced myself to look straight ahead. Threads of worry and protest and a weak amount of gratitude and admiration swirled in my thoughts, confusing my perceptions of the road in front of me. As I noticed my distraction I seized on it: it was dangerous to be out of focus, especially where we were headed. I took a deep breath and let it hiss out my mouth.

Karne slowed his erratic driving when we reached the street leading up to Ms. Grange-Martinson's house. I felt my knee twinge, and I reached for it. We rounded the corner of the driveway, and Karne parked the car in front. He stepped out of his door like we'd arrived to meet her for tea, but he'd already snapped the safety off of his gun when I joined him at the front bumper of the car.

"Oliver? Violet?" I heard Ms. Grange-Martinson before I saw her. Her voice carried over to us easily, though she was standing some distance away on the edge of the gravel extension of her driveway. Karne took my elbow and started to walk toward her, still behaving as though we belonged there.

"I'm sorry for the intrusion," he said in an almost jaunty tone. I tightened my forearm muscles, and he lightly pressed his fingertips into the skin of my arm. "Violet was concerned for you and asked if we could delay a bit to make sure you were all right." He swiveled his head to look at me fondly.

"Oh you little dear," she cooed. Her bleached smile flashed under the sun. She put a palm up to the side of her tightly bound hair, and I noticed a few strands had strayed forward as though she'd been fussing with them. "There's no need to worry."

"You see, dear?" Oliver gave me the fond glance again, and I smiled weakly and nervously back up at him.

"But won't you miss your flight?" I tried to keep my voice level.

"I'm sorry, dear, I saw your mouth move but I missed what you said." She walked closer to us. I felt a small quake start in my chest. Karne was still beside me, and I felt an increase of pressure from his fingers again.

"Oh," I said a little more loudly. "I was only worried you'd miss your plane." She turned her smile toward me briefly, and then gave a soft laugh.

"Never mind about that, Violet," she soothed. "There are always other flights." She brushed her palms over her immaculate skirt as though she were smoothing out wrinkles. "Now you'll forgive me for being a poor hostess, but I've got to see to a few things before the construction starts. I'm sure you understand."

"Of course we do," Karne said heartily. "There, dear," he continued. "All's well, just as I told you." He made a show of patting my arm, and I could see Ms. Grange-Martinson's face harden. She forced it back into place quickly. It was then, as we were all smiling at one another and shifting our weight uncomfortably on the concrete of the driveway, when the first patrol car rounded the corner onto the street.

"I wonder what on earth," she said. Her voice was tight and high-pitched, and I had to strain to hear it. The patrol car rounded the drive way. "There must be some misunderstanding," she said. Her hands had closed into fists; she took another step toward us. Karne stayed still. Then the sound of the door of the patrol car opening set him in motion. He dropped my arm and strode toward Ms. Grange-Martinson, who stood between us and the gravel driveway extension.

"There's no point now," he said firmly, continuing to close in on her, and on the plot we thought held the remains of all three victims. Her fists opened, and she raised her hands. She narrowed her eyes and positioned herself to block Karne's path.

"Who are you?" Her voice shifted to a lower and more forceful timbre. I could hear the officer's footsteps approaching behind me, but I felt fixed in my stance, unable to do anything for Karne.

"This is the woman, officer," Karne waved an arm toward Ms. Grange-Martinson. The officer swept past me, and his partner was close behind. She straightened her posture and rounded on them.

"Don't you dare," she snapped, tensing her arms by her sides. The first officer calmly told her to put her arms up and away from her torso. I watched them subdue and cuff her, then grab her bodily as she briefly struggled against them, digging in her heels and twisting her back as they walked her to the patrol car. Karne's face was placid as the officers did their work. While they radioed in a report of the arrest he quickly fixed the safety on his gun.

Once I could no longer hear her hissing voice coming from the car I finally felt able to move. I walked toward Karne and the gravel patch, one foot in front of the other. He watched me come.

"Well, Connell?" He prodded. I pulled one step past him as we approached. There was a wide-toothed rake discarded in the gravel at the side of an exposed patch of tamped-down dirt. I could see two areas of disturbed soil and the edge of a third. So Karne was right. I'd thought I'd be proud of him at the end of all this, but I can't say I was. I remember pulling my arms around myself and letting my eyes glaze as I looked at the dirt patch, and simply feeling worn, blank, and cold.

"It's got to be official from here," I said at last. I could see Karne's sharp nod from the corner of my eye. We walked slowly back to the patrol car, which had been joined by two others and a crime scene team van. We stood near the steps of the house, waiting in silence.

We stayed as dozens of people arrived and the scene was sealed. We backed farther away at the request of a few officers, and Karne still said nothing. I pushed my hands into my pockets, unwilling to leave him standing alone. I focused my attention on the hurried activity in front of me. Ms. Grange-Martinson was in the back of a patrol car staring daggers at the cops walking along the borders of the area covered in gravel. I noticed they stayed a good distance from the edge of the concrete.

At last, Karne and I walked toward a uniformed woman standing nearby. She looked familiar from another scene, I thought, and I think she thought the same about me. I introduced myself with my title, and introduced Karne without one. I could see him straighten as though he'd been slighted. She peered at him a moment and he looked back calmly. I was reminded of our meeting in the elevator.

"I'm not sure this is one of your scenes, Doctor," the woman began.

"How's that?" I pulled my attention from the excavation back to the woman.

"I think it's one for a shrink," the woman joked. I forced the corners of my mouth to lift.

"Have they got the remains out?" I flung my hand in the direction of the patch where I could see three dark holes in the dirt.

"Yeah," the officer said. "They've found two females, both decapitated, and a male. Smells like they've been here a while." She turned her face to glance toward a fellow officer on the other side of the gravel. I scanned the perimeter of the crime scene until my eyes landed on three black body bags, zipped tight and resting on the ground.

"DuPret isn't here yet, right?" I'd turned to look at the team picking through the rocks alongside the three bagged bodies.

"Nope," she said, casually nodding in the direction of another officer.

I wandered away, not even checking to see if Karne was following me. I'd become aware, again, that most of DuPret's job was foreign to me. I didn't see the people he put away, or the way they reacted to the realization we knew what they'd done. It wasn't something I could say I felt good about, even though I sure didn't want Ms. Grange-Martinson anywhere near any other potential victims.

"No one wins, Connell." Karne's voice was quiet by my shoulder. I flinched.

"Yeah," I muttered. I glanced at him before turning to look where he was faced—back at the three black bags. We stood quietly as the crime scene team continued to sift through the shallow gravel.

"Ah. DuPret." Karne turned toward the sound of a car approaching. DuPret launched toward us as soon as he parked. I watched him come.

"Doc. Karne," he nodded. "Going to tell me what you know?"

"Perhaps we'll simply tell you what you don't know, DuPret," Karne said. DuPret's face twitched, but he stayed quiet. Karne nodded once and drew a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. He took his time in lighting one, and took a lazy drag that he blew slowly into the air over our heads. He started telling DuPret about the tea blends, gesturing in the air between us. The flakes of ash from his cigarette caught on the slow breeze and came to rest on the front of DuPret's dark jacket.

The scene team brought the van around and loaded the bags into the back. I watched the guys on the team strip the gloves from their hands and swing up into the front seat of the van. They stopped to roll down the windows before they started the engine. I nodded toward the driver when we caught each other's glances. I turned my attention back to Karne's ongoing lecture.

"…Ramos had the added duty of polishing the floor of the atrium on the night Ms. Grange-Martinson buried the second set of bones. He saw her there. She killed him. I suspect you will find the murder weapon among her taxidermy tools. And you'll wonder why the two women never saw a doctor?" DuPret nodded, looking very annoyed. "She convinced them they had an illness, and that she knew how to treat it." Karne waved a hand again, sending ash flying. "You can manage the rest, detective?" Karne raised an eyebrow at DuPret, who straightened up and looked annoyed.

"Course," he snapped. "You two just get on with your day out, Karne." DuPret walked toward the crime scene team, scowling. Karne let out a quiet chuckle. He dropped his cigarette butt and ground his heel against it.

"How did you know about the illness?" I muttered to Karne, a little worried he'd made that part up.

"Her mailbox contained two newsletters on alternative treatments for Lupus with subscription tags bearing her name." Karne turned his grey eyes on me. I folded my arms in front of my chest and looked away for a moment. "Anything else, doctor?"

"Don't call me that," I said automatically. I supposed there wasn't anything else. After we left Victoria Grange-Martinson's driveway my adventure in the world of murder mysteries was over. Back to the dry bones for me.

DuPret walked past us on the way to his car; he punctured the quiet between us to tell us he was headed to the station. Karne nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. I found myself copying his posture as we stood together on the edge of the gravel patch.

* * *

I lost sight of Karne at the precinct, where my credentials got me through security at once. I followed DuPret toward his office and he gestured for me to sit until he returned. Some time later—I'm not sure how long exactly, the female officer from the scene walked me down a series of drab hallways to the separate observation room of an interview area. I was impressed at the parallel to all the TV cop shows I'd seen; the woman told me the room was sort of a relic from the old days, and that the newer buildings didn't have one. I was grateful this one did. I took my post and turned on the speaker that allowed me to hear the conversation between Karne, DuPret, and Ms. Grange-Martinson.

She sat at a table with a grey fiberglass top. It and the bench near it appeared to be bolted to the floor. It looked uncomfortable, but she never shifted in the seat. She sat up straight, with her hands gently folded together atop the table. They'd taken off her cuffs as she sat, but I could see the indentations on her exposed wrists. Predictably, she was giving Karne her polished and bleached smile.

"You do have an eye for plants, Oliver," she purred. She extended a hand across the table toward him, and Karne looked down at it like it was a lab specimen. I tightened my grip on the sill at the base of the one-way glass. It was almost a relief to feel the sharp edge of the flaking laminate putting a crease in the skin of my fingers. Otherwise, standing in the dark observation room and hearing them through a tinny speaker, I could almost imagine this was all on TV, or in my head, or otherwise not happening. But it was, and Karne was there. He was doing this. We were.

"Ms. Grange-Martinson," Karne said firmly, "you stabbed Mr. Ramos. Why did you take his body to your home?"

"Stabbed him? Oh, Oliver, you don't believe these men about my tea, do you?" The smile on her face became rigid and she withdrew her hand again. DuPret stepped closer to the table, and her eyes flicked toward him.

"Stop this." Karne's nostrils flared. He placed his palms down on the surface of the table and loomed over her. I could see the muscles of her jaw tighten as she held her smile. "You transported him. Why?"

"I saw your wife, Oliver," she said quietly, looking down at her fingernails. She smiled broadly. "Of course you married a Violet, being a gardener." Karne drew back up to his full height, wrinkling his forehead. She looked back up at him, and he smoothed his face back to a neutral expression. "Finicky plants, violets. I saw her when we had tea, that little girl of yours. She thought when I left you I didn't see her, but I did. I saw her looking at my birds, the little homes I made for them."

"Ramos, Ms. Grange-Martinson," Karne insisted. She put up a hand.

"She has such pretty hair, your little girl." I felt a sliver of veneer give way under my grip and drop to the floor. DuPret's eyes cut toward Karne. "The others were never curious, you know. They never asked about the birds." I leaned closer to the glass. Karne stood with his thumbs hooked into the lowest corners of his trouser pockets; his face was stern.

"Ms. Grange-Martinson," Karne tried again.

"No." She snapped at him, all traces of her smile gone and the powerful muscles of her temples and jaw visibly tensed beneath the skin of her face. "I know what you did, Oliver. You wanted to keep her. You took the tea I sent for her. You'd never have let me have her like my husband let me have his girls. I took care of them. They died just as I said they would; I told them how they would die."

"How was that?" DuPret cut in.

"Lupus, DuPret," Karne said quietly. "She told them they had symptoms of Lupus." I heard myself make a quiet choking noise. When he'd said so before I'd managed not to picture it: the women dying in beds in her house, and her knowing precisely what she was doing.

"Very good, Oliver," she smiled. "Oh, they thought I understood so well," she laughed lightly. I felt a bitter taste rise up onto the back of my tongue. "I could have planted your little Violet in my garden, Oliver." She laughed again and I let go of the ledge. I stepped away from the glass and shook my hands once as I dropped them to my sides. "Right there in the afternoon sun. What do you think?"

"I think you never planned to kill Ramos. I think you did a bad job of it. I think you took him to your garden to hide your failure." Karne's voice was flat and bored, almost. I watched him turn his side to her, and a rapid shot of feeling—like a muscle cramp in a rapid wave—flew from my shoulders down my torso. How could he be so calm?

"My failure?" She snapped at him. She pressed her palms to the table edge and started to stand. DuPret moved closer to her, but Karne stayed turned away. "He meant nothing!"

"But you failed, didn't you?" Karne raised his left hand up to the level of his chest and seemed to study the back of his hand. He curled his fingers into a fist and dropped it to his side again. "You were careless and angry—you made a mess of him, and right there in the office under all the security cameras. Anyone could have known."

"No one did! No one knew. I took him out. I took care of him." She'd stood and was leaning across the table toward him, her face pale and frozen. She reached toward him. DuPret put a hand on her shoulder to push her back into the chair. Karne turned his head to look directly at her for a moment, then strode purposefully toward the door.

I watched him leave. I watched a uniformed officer cuff Ms. Grange-Martinson and take her from the room. I realized, finally, that I'd put my palm to my stomach and was holding it there. I'd also pulled the corner of my lower lip into my mouth and had started to run my teeth over the surface. The repeated sensation started to soothe me. I composed myself, smoothed my shirt down my front, and walked out the door.

DuPret followed me into the hallway. I tried to be covert about my need to catch my breath. We stood silently side by side, eyes trained ahead to the door of the interview room. I dropped my shoulder blades back to lean against the wall.

"Your first death threat, Doc?" DuPret's voice wasn't mocking; his intonation was almost flat.

"Yeah," I managed at last. I cleared my throat and shifted my weight.

"If I didn't have reports to file I'd buy you a beer," he said. He swiveled his head and looked at me, still without any visible mockery. "Tell you what, Nancy Drew. Get Karne to buy you one. He owes you." DuPret turned his face back toward the door, then turned to walk back to his office.

"DuPret," I called, my voice quieter than I'd intended. He looked back at me and raised his eyebrows. "Thanks." A very small ripple of surprise passed his features; he then nodded once and turned back toward his office. I watched him walk off, and when I looked back toward the door I realized I'd been running my fingers around the fake tattooed wedding band as though there were actually a ring there. I brought my hand up to my face and looked again at the twisting design. She was right. Karne did have an eye for plants.

* * *

Yes, this is a do-over, patient readers. I agreed with J.A. Lowell so thoroughly that I rewrote the final scenes. Please forgive any confusion from the original (lame) ending. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: No One Wins**

_Victoria Grange-Martinson, alleged killer of three office workers in downtown LA, continues to mount her defense. The District Attorney's office has successfully petitioned for a closed trial, but sources say the defense team has "given up" on defending Ms. Grange-Martinson on several of the charges . . . _

I settled a little more into my slouch, balancing my bowl of macaroni and cheese atop a throw pillow on my lap. It was seven in the evening and I was already in my pajamas. Not all that long ago I would've been dressed in some unlikely outfit allowing Karne to drag me off into something mildly illegal, I mused. I felt the smile slide off my face. It hadn't been that long, but I hadn't heard from him at all.

I dug my spoon into my macaroni and cheese and pulled my attention back to the local news. The little adventures with Karne weren't real life. I'd known that at the time, and I knew it now. I'd never hear from him again.

_Sources close to the investigation claim that Ms. Grange-Martinson convinced the young women that their symptoms of arsenic poisoning were indicators of Lupus, and that she was skilled in alternative medicine. She allegedly convinced the young women to stay at her home and continued to poison them until they died. _

I shook my head. In my line of work you can't pretend there aren't people like that out there—murderers, I mean—but it can still be a little shocking. I suppose I'm just more used to the crimes Karne said were "unoriginal," like Ramos' murder.

I lifted my left hand up into my line of sight, blocking the anchorwoman. A faint stain of Karne's wedding ring tattoo still clung to my ring finger, though I'd taken nail polish remover to it a week ago. I supposed I'd simply have to wait for the skin to slough off.

"Guess this way I know it actually happened," I muttered to myself. I turned my attention back to the TV in time to catch the weather and an investigative report on campaign finance, and I finished my dinner alone.

* * *

The case lingered in trial and stayed on the news every night—LA loves a true crime story that sounds like a fiction—and I was on a difficult identification case. I had charred remains of what seemed to be two skeletons. They were so hopelessly meshed in the remains of fabric and soft tissue that it seemed like someone had put them in a cement mixer and let them rumble a while. The work was painstaking.

Bridget and I had been bent over a lab table together for something like four hours when I declared a short break. We were both sweating under the high-powered lab lights. Bridget's purple hair dye had left a line against her skin where a damp tendril clung to her neck. I couldn't help staring at the dyed mark so similar to the ones still faintly visible on my ring finger. I blinked hard and gathered my thoughts.

"I'm pretty sure we've got adolescents," I said. Bridget nodded tiredly. She peeled off her exam gloves and coat before sinking into her chair.

"Do you want to grab coffee?" She leaned her head on her hand and left her legs sprawled in front of her. "If you give me a sec to photograph what we've got I can meet you downstairs."

"Sounds perfect," I agreed. I shucked my gloves and lab coat and grabbed my purse. The flash from the digital camera popped behind me as I put my hand to the door latch. "You'll be down in a minute?"

"You won't even miss me," she called. When I got to the lobby I saw McLynn and Chad headed toward a car going up. I called out to stop them, and we stood in a cluster near the metal detectors.

"Hon, you look like you got dragged through a hedge backward today," McLynn drawled. Chad let out a snort that he tried to cover by clearing his throat. I put a palm up to my hair. From what I could feel, she was right.

"I've been trying to separate two charred skeletons all morning," I said. "Bridget's on it too." Chad and McLynn both looked sympathetic and dismayed. Everyone who's worked with charred remains knows the word "separate" is a sign of regrettable things to come.

"You've been at it all morning?" Chad lifted his eyebrows. I nodded.

"There's good news, though," I raised my hand to my hair again to shove some loose strands back behind my ears. "I've got enough teeth to get somewhere with dental pulp."

"Dental pulp nothing, girl," Bridget's voice cut in. "Where's my coffee?" Chad and McLynn laughed. They left us for the elevators and we wandered across the echoing lobby to the small coffee stand. By the time we made it there the barista had our usual orders on the counter. Bridget insisted it was her turn to pay, so I slunk off to one of the bistro tables. I was a few swallows into my drink before I noticed DuPret was at an adjacent table. He was on his phone and gesturing sharply. Of course I eavesdropped.

"Look, I don't care if she's the Queen Mother. She's got a serious case already." DuPret gripped the side of his table as the person on the other end spoke.

"And I told you we have other…" DuPret's voice trailed off. "Damn it, Karne, I can't just hand Connell a skull from outside my jurisdiction because she's the only…"

I sat up straight and wrapped both my hands around my cup. Bridget arrived at the table and gave me a sideways look. I shook my head as she opened her mouth to speak.

"I don't care about tool marks. I care that that golf course is in Arizona." Bridget and I frowned at one another. I heard DuPret's palm hit the top of his table. "Then talk to them, Karne. Connell only works in California." DuPret snapped his phone shut with some violence and let out a puff of air. Bridget raised her eyebrows at me. I shook my head again and waited for DuPret to walk off.

"What the hell?" Bridget demanded.

"I don't know anything about it," I said, staring down at the surface of my coffee and wrinkling my forehead. "Seriously, he hasn't talked to me since DuPret arrested Victoria Grange-Martinson."

"Not at all?" Bridget's intonation shot up at the end. "But you guys were friends."

"I don't know about that." I took a drink of my coffee and took a long time in swallowing. "I don't think he likes friends."

"I don't know what the hell that means, Amy, but I don't think you're right."

"Right about what?" I had the feeling we were talking past one another.

"He obviously wants you to do something. He'll be around." She glanced past me to the table where DuPret had been sitting.

"Maybe," I muttered.

* * *

A short time later I heard the case had gone to the jury for a verdict. I wasn't very aware of the amount of time the deliberation was likely to take or even whether there was a way to know about things like that. In fact, I hadn't thought much about it. I was too busy spending my days bent over a skull two boys had found at the edge of a water hazard on a golf course in Arizona. Then Karne showed up.

I took an embarrassingly long time to figure out that he was there to see me and that I ought to greet him. I just managed to straighten up from the table and stare at him.

"Connell?" He prompted at last, stepping closer to the lab table where I'd placed the skull on a cushion beneath a magnifying light. "Are you well?"

"Course—I'm fine," I blustered, fidgeting with the pockets of my lab coat. "Yourself?" Karne just smiled at me and shook his head. He tilted his head at me and peered at my face.

"You look terrible." He straightened up after making his pronouncement. I heard Bridget snort behind me.

"Thanks," I snapped.

"I believe the jury will return a verdict today, Connell," Karne explained, "most likely this afternoon."

"Will they?" I muttered, reaching for my notebook to record the location of a tool mark before I forgot what I'd concluded.

"Well?" Karne demanded. I looked up at him, stymied. He stared back, impatiently flaring his nostrils. "Are you coming?" He flung his hand up between us. I turned away from him as I took off my lab coat so he wouldn't see me smiling.

"I'm off to the courthouse," I yelled to Bridget.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," she yelled back. Karne huffed quietly beside me. He handed me my purse, which he must have been holding even before he found me at the table. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling again.

He said nothing to me on the ride to the court building, and he barely said a word beyond basic directions to the courtroom once we arrived. The press had formed a clot just outside the doors of the room, and I could see technicians with cameras and sound booms lingering by the doors to the courthouse steps. It seemed the journalists agreed with Karne about the likely timing of the verdict announcement.

Karne opened the courtroom door for me and put a hand to my back as I walked through. I'd forgotten his gestures during the weeks since I'd seen him, and the contact made me stiffen. He withdrew his hand the moment I flinched, and I felt a little guilty. I tried to crane my head around to smile at him, or something, but he looked occupied with leading us through the crowded room.

He slouched beside me as I peered at the people in the courtroom. Most of the times I had testified nearly no one had been at the trial beyond cops, lawyers, and defendants. The most I'd seen was family, really. Never press. I gawked.

The delivery of the verdict was almost a disappointment. The jury filed in, looking nervous and tired, and the foreman stood. They observed the same formalities as always. The foreman read nervously from a paper he'd hidden in his hand: Guilty. All counts. The increase of noise in the courtroom held off until the judge finished speaking, but was impressive once it started. The entire table for the defense vanished under the crush of press pushing forward. I felt Karne's grip on my forearm and let him lead me out a side door and into the front lobby of the building. We came to a stop by the doors, where Karne let go of my arm and started off toward the metal detectors.

"You win," I said. He turned to face me and raised his eyebrows for a moment, then smiled.

"Of course not, Connell," he shook his head, "I was wrong about the cameras in the lobby."

"What?" I had a hard time catching up for a moment, there—the cameras in the atrium? Where she'd hidden the bones?

"They weren't entirely blocked, Connell." His voice was flat as he told me. I looked up at him, nonplussed. Then I laughed.

"You are so odd, Karne," I pronounced. He frowned at me. "Who cares about the cameras? You found out who did it."

"I care about the cameras," he said stiffly.

"Sorry." I kicked my toe against the polished floor and regretted my big mouth. "You won't get any credit in the stories, I suppose," I said.

"All the better," Karne said. His tone had returned to normal, and I let out a breath. "Credit makes it difficult for me to work. But that was not your question, I perceive. You want to know why I don't care that DuPret gets all the glory?" He smirked down at me. I squirmed. "It is not the glory, Connell. DuPret works for the fame. I am in it for the challenge."

"You do a lot of this?" I stepped closer to him to allow the exiting crowds more room to pass, and noticed again how much I had to crane my neck to look at him.

"I am a detective, Connell," he smirked. The expression slid from his face as his eyes drifted toward the crowd leaving the court building. Then he cut his eyes back toward me and peered down into my face. "Enough," he said suddenly, waving a hand. I waited, hoping he'd have found another skeleton for me to think about. "Connell, you must learn to defend yourself."

"What?" I blurted. He took my elbow and led us out the door and down the steps.

"You should start by learning to shoot, I think," he began. "Yes, your skull can wait. We'll go to the shooting range."

"Now?" I was trotting to keep up with his strides as he made his way toward his car.

"Of course now," he snapped. "How do you expect to be of continued use to me if you're in danger of getting yourself killed?" I blinked at him. I tried to think of a response. In the end, I got in the car, and I spent the evening learning to shoot. Because, as usual, he had a point: I wouldn't make much of a Watson to his Holmes if I didn't have my trusty revolver, now would I?


End file.
